This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

Location of earthquake

Workers in Nairobi were quick to rush to safety when the quake hit.

An earthquake along the East African Great Rift Valley faultline struck at 12:19:55 (UTC) (14:19:55 local time at the epicentre) on 5 December 2005 approximately 10 km (6 miles) below the surface of Lake Tanganyika. Its estimated magnitude was between 6.3 and 6.8. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Ongoing events • Abramoff-Reed gambling scandal • Al Jazeera bombing memo • Avian influenza (H5N1) outbreak • Black sites scandal • Fuel prices • Irans nuclear program • Jilin chemical plant explosions • Kashmir earthquake • Malawi food crisis • Malaysian prisoner abuse scandal • New Delhi bombings investigation • Niger food crisis • North Indian cyclone season • Pacific typhoon season... Nairobi skyline Nairobi is the capital of Kenya. ... Global earthquake epicenters, 1963–1998 An earthquake is a sudden and sometimes catastrophic movement of a part of the Earths surface. ... East Africa is a region generally considered to include: Djibouti Eritrea Ethiopia Kenya Somalia Tanzania Uganda Burundi, Rwanda, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, and Sudan are sometimes considered a part of East Africa. ... Northern section of the Great Rift Valley. ... UTC also stands for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Coordinated Universal Time or UTC, also sometimes referred to as Zulu time, the basis for civil time, differs by an integral number of seconds from atomic time and a fractional number of seconds from UT1. ... The epicenter or epicentre (ancient Greek: επίκεντρον) is the point on the Earths surface that is directly above or below the center of a localized explosive event or point of seismic energy release. ... December 5 is the 339th day (340th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Fishermen on Lake Tanganyika Lake Tanganyika is a large lake in central Africa (3° 20 to 8° 48 South and from 29° 5 to 31° 15 East). ... The Richter magnitude test scale (or more correctly local magnitude ML scale) assigns a single number to quantify the size of an earthquake. ...

Early reports indicated that the heaviest damage was sustained by the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa), a region already ravaged by extensive war and extreme poverty. The area houses tens of thousands of refugees displaced by conflicts, such as the Second Congo War and the Burundian Civil War, that have plagued the African Great Lakes for the last decade. War is a state of widespread conflict between states, organisations, or relatively large groups of people, which is characterised by the use of lethal violence between combatants or upon civilians. ... A boy from an East Cipinang trash dump slum in Jakarta, Indonesia shows his find. ... The Second Congo War was a conflict that took place largely in the territory of Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). ... The Burundi Civil War is driven by ethnic rivalries between Hutu and Tutsi tribal factions of Burundi. ... The Great Lakes and the East African coastline as seen from space. ...

At least two deaths have been reported so far.^[1] Dozens of houses collapsed in the D.R. Congo city of Kalemie.^[2] Michel Bonnardeaux, a UN spokesman, said that most of the casualties were caused by falling zinc or steel roofs. Kalemie, fomerly Alberville, is a town on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika in the Democratic Republic of Congo. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... General Name, Symbol, Number zinc, Zn, 30 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 12, 4, d Appearance bluish pale gray Atomic mass 65. ... The old steel cable of a colliery winding tower Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon being the primary alloying material. ...

Although earthquakes with magnitudes in the 6-7 range are not normally associated with massive damage, in East Africa such seismic events can wreak havoc. The quake was centred roughly below Lake Tanganyika and — in addition to the DRC, where the most widespread damage has been reported — it was felt in Burundi, Tanzania, Rwanda, and as far away as the coastal city of Mombasa in Kenya.^[3][4] Mombasa is the second largest city in Kenya. ...

Notes

1. ^  The Herald, Two die as earthquake topples houses
2. ^  BBC News, Powerful quake rocks East Africa
3. ^  CNN, East Africa quake buries children
4. ^  MSNBC, Magnitude 6.8 quake kills at least two in Congo

External links

• Magnitude 6.8 - LAKE TANGANYIKA REGION, CONGO-TANZANIA, 2005 December 5 12:19:55 UTC, United States Geological Survey
• Powerful quake rocks East Africa, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation