At least 13 people have been confirmed dead and 200 injured after a 5.7 magnitude earthquake hit northwest Tanzania on Saturday afternoon at a depth of 10km, reported africanews.
Tanzanian police said over two hundred injured people have been hospitalised and rescue operations are ongoing.
“The toll has climbed from 11 people dead to 13 and from 192 injured to 203,” Deodatus Kinawilo, District Commissioner for Bukoba, the town close to the quake’s epicentre, told AFP.
“For now, the situation is calm and under control,” said Kinawilo, who was reached by telephone.
“Some people have been discharged from hospital,” he told AFP. “We don’t expect many more injuries. We’ll see tomorrow.“
Most parts of East Africa also felt the tremor including Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Kenya. The tremors were reported in Kigali, Iganga, Mbarara, Kabale, Kampala, Bujumbura, Bungoma among many other towns in the region between 12pm (GMT) and 1:30pm (GMT).
Casualties have not yet been recorded in these areas.
“WE ARE STILL WORRIED”
An AFP correspondent in Dar es Salaam whose mother’s family lives in Bukoba said 10 family houses had collapsed.
“My brother was driving around town, suddenly he heard the ground shaking and people starting running around and buildings collapsing,” he said.
“It’s safe in Dar but we are still worried about the safety of our family,” the AFP correspondent added. “The regional hospital is overwhelmed and can’t handle any more patients.”
“Emergency operations are poor and the government isn’t saying anything,” he said.
“The walls of my home shook as well as the fridge and the cupboards,” said an AFP correspondent in the Ugandan capital Kampala.
AFP journalists in Democratic Republic of Congo said it was felt, though faintly, in Bukavu in the east, but not in nearby Goma or Lubumbashi.
AN EXCEPTION
Low-intensity earthquakes are regularly felt in the Great Lakes region making Saturday’s tremor an exception.
The quake’s epicentre was about 25km east of the north-western town of Nsunga on the border of Lake Victoria, according to the US Geological Survey.
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