(www.monitor.co.ug)
ZEPHANIA UBWANI, EMMANUEL GYEZAHO, RICHARD MGAMBA & AGENCIES
SOME offices in high rise buildings mainly in Arusha, Tanzania and parts of Nairobi were yesterday abandoned as a series of earth tremors continued to hit the East African towns for the fifth day.
Panic gripped the two EA cities with dozens of workers declining to enter the high-rise buildings on Wednesday morning. The Tanzania Meteorological Agency confirmed that the ongoing tremors have triggered panic in every corner of the country but allayed public fears about an impending major earthquake.
TMA chief Mohamed Mhita maintained that such tremors usually occur at least during this period of the year and he described them as normal. He said they cause no major damage.
In Kampala, Geology specialists were quick to assert that Uganda was in a safe zone, even though the country experienced an earth quake last month and last week.
The tremors follow a strong earthquake - measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale, which hit the Northern Tanzanian town of Arusha, shaking the area around Lake Natron on Tuesday.
The tremors bring to eleven the number of seismic waves that have hit Arusha and parts of Kenya since Thursday last week. The tremors, appeared milder compared to those that shook Arusha on Tuesday evening and Sunday afternoon, but created more fear .
Information obtained indicates that one tremor occurred on Thursday and Saturday, two each on Sunday and Monday and three on Tuesday, including the strongest one at 5:11 pm.
Thousands of Mwanza residents on Tuesday night slept out of their houses after news broke out that there was a possibility of a heavy tremor hitting the Lake Zone regions between 12:00 and 1 am.
News broke out at around 10pm on Tuesday that the Tanzania Meteorological Agency had issued a warning about the possibility of experien cing heavy tremors within the region in the next few hours. The warning was issued just a few hours after another tremor rocked Mwanza city at around 5pm but no damage was reported across the region. This situation caused panic as fears clouded thousands of residents here, with all people leaving their houses and camping on the open grounds, waiting for the tremor to "strike".
Many banks and business institutions in Arusha remained closed yesterday after it emerged that some landmark buildings in the city had cracked due to tremors. Many Arusha residents opted to invoke divine intervention and spent much of last night praying in the open. Some slept outside their houses.
Employees of various companies housed in the Anniversary Towers at University way Nairobi spent a better part of yesterday morning outside the building after they received information that an earthquake would rock Nairobi at around 9am. The scare came a few minutes after Government Spokesman Al fred Mutua released a statement telling Kenyans to ignore rumours of an impending quake in the city.
"I was equally shocked when I experienced the tremors while having a shower this morning but experts have confirmed that it is unlikely that anything is likely to erupt in Kenya," said Kenya's internal security minister John Michuki.
Mr Michuki told reporters after receiving a situation analysis report from seismological experts. The report by experts from the University of Nairobi said a total of nine tremors have been experienced in Kenya since Thursday last week.
The seismologists attribute this to volcanic activity at Oldoiyo Lengai Mountain area located in the Eastern Rift Valley to the north of Tanzania. East Africa's Great Rift Valley runs along a geological fault line, but has largely escaped major quakes in recent years.
American geological experts yesterday downplayed chances of the Kenya and Tanzania tremors leading to a major earthquake.
A report by American geologists posted online on Wednesday stated that the earthquakes represent a seismic phenomenon known as a seismic "swarm".
The experts said this "is an episode of high earthquake activity in which the largest earthquake does not occur at the beginning of the episode and in which the largest earthquake is not substantially larger than other earthquakes of the episode". The magnitude of the series of quakes has been between 4.4 and 6.0 according to USGS data.
John Tiberindwa, a senior lecturer at Makerere University's Geology Department said "It wouldn't necessarily mean that once the Eastern Rift Valley is active, then the Western or Albertine Rift Valley as we know it, which runs through Uganda, would be active, although you cannot rule out that since they are branches of the same rift valley, it could happen," he said.
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