Strong earthquake hits East Africa: USGS

Nairobi is 600 miles away, and according to the USGS link (thanks Merdia_Lies_Daily) this quake is shallower than most, which often means more damage (I suspect the Reuters report may have come from their reporter in Nairobi).

Also on BBC ticker: http://news.bbc.co.uk/

<http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic_ggai.html>

<http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/current/africa.html>

is that it happened in a lake. I have no idea if anyone lives anywhere near there or how built up it could be.

http://www.iris.edu/seismon/

Lake Tanganyika, 6.8

So named because of the earthquakes?

Anybody know the history of the area?

Tectonic plates are pulling apart in such undersea areas, creating new seabed, so there is plenty of related tectonic activity. I presume something similar would be occurring in the great rift valley of Africa. I haven't heard a lot about earthquake activity in Africa, though.

It's analogous to the New Madrid fault in North America...it's a spot where the continent is trying to divide itself into two.

has the strange weather and natural disasters ever been this frequent?

I have a friend in that region.
:(

http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051205/API/512050647&cachetime=5

By ANJAN SUNDARAM
Associated Press Writer

A powerful earthquake Monday toppled dozens of homes and buried children in rubble in eastern Congo, killing at least three people in a region already beset by chronic violence and grinding poverty.

The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8, struck at 2:20 p.m. (7:20 a.m. EST) and was centered beneath Lake Tanganyika on the Congo-Tanzania border, about 600 miles southwest of Nairobi, Kenya, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site.

"Dozens of houses have collapsed, several children were buried by the roofs of their houses," said Dr. Jean-Donne Owali, a Congolese humanitarian worker in the lakeside city of Kalemie, Congo, about 35 miles from the epicenter.

I don't believe I have ever heard of one - certainly not that large.

They don't usually make our press, but Africa has earthquake faults, volcanoes, and other natural disasters just like the rest of the world.