GOMA: The eastern DR Congo city of Goma was shaken Wednesday by a flurry of shocks from the nearby Mount Nyiragongo volcano four days after its eruption, badly damaging several buildings, an AFP reporter said.
Residents felt the tremors at regular intervals throughout the night, with two powerful shocks from Africa’s most active volcano triggering widespread alarm and causing terrified people to run out of their homes.
The seismic monitoring agency RSM in neighbouring Rwanda, whose border runs close to Goma, said it had detected a 5.1-magnitude quake at 5:46 am (0345 GMT), followed by a 4.1-magnitude tremor at 6:12 am.
Thirty-two people have died and at least five thousand are feared to be homeless after the volcano erupted on Saturday, according to the United Nations.
By the time the eruption ended on Sunday the volcano had shot out two rivers of molten lava, one of which came to halt on the edge of Goma after obliterating villages in its wake.
The lakeshore city of 1.5 million people lies around a dozen kilometres from the volcano.
A two-storey building on a road to the southwest of the city partially collapsed overnight, but without apparently causing any casualties.
Two other buildings were badly damaged, while another building in the city’s Katindo district had completely collapsed.
Property damage was also reported in Gisenyi, a Rwandan town on the other side of the border, according to social media.
On Tuesday, at least four buildings partially collapsed in Goma, including a three-story structure in which eight people were seriously injured, emergency workers said.
Long cracks, several dozen centimetres (around two feet) wide in places, have also opened up in the ground since the eruption — some of them spewing out water, possibly from nearby Lake Kivu.
Fearful of their homes collapsing, many people slept outside on mattresses and under mosquito nets.
Local volcanologists have recorded hundreds of shocks since Nyiragongo roared back into life, but say there is hope that the much-feared volcano will calm down.
A so-called strato-volcano nearly 3,500 mm high, Nyiragongo straddles the East African Rift tectonic divide.
Its last major eruption, in 2002, claimed around 100 lives.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday that at least 150 children had become separated from their parents after the eruption, and that another 170 were missing. — AFP
