At least 11 dead, 100 injured in Tanzania earthquake – police

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania – At least 11 people were killed and around 100 injured in Tanzania’s Bukoba district when an earthquake hit the country on Saturday, September 10, a district police chief told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“We currently have 11 people dead and more than 100 injured, several of whom have been hospitalized… rescue operations are ongoing,” Augustine Ollomi, the Kagera province police chief in charge of the Bukoba district said by telephone.

Residents of the Tanzanian town of Bukoba, near the epicenter, had earlier told AFP that some houses there had caved in. 

The earthquake measured 5.7 and was felt in nearby Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, the US Geological Survey said.

The epicenter of the 1227 GMT quake (8:27 am Philippine time) was about 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of the north-western town of Nsunga on the border of Lake Victoria.

“The walls of my home shook as well as the fridge and the cupboards,” also said an AFP correspondent in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

Earthquakes are fairly common in the Great Lakes region but are almost always of low intensity. – Rappler.com