Aftershocks continue to rattle the eastern town of Bukavu three days after an earthquake killed six people and injured hundreds. Many residents are still sleeping in the open for fear their damaged houses might collapse.

“We felt another series of tremors at 3pm [on 6 February]. We cannot allow people to go home and spend the night there in case their walls fall in,” said Dieudonne Wafula, who is in charge of the Goma volcano observatory and travelled to Bukavu, which lies at the opposite end of Lake Kivu to Goma.

Some families have begun to receive humanitarian assistance.

“The composition of standard non-food kits has been adapted to the specific needs of the families; they include two plastic sheets, two blankets, and soap mainly,” said Christophe Illemassene, spokesman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Bukavu’s mayor, Bonga Laisi, told IRIN by telephone that some schools, shops and offices in the town had re-opened, a development that alarmed Wafula. “We have seen that schools have re-opened without advice from us experts. We would have liked only the secondary school to have re-opened to start with to save the lives of the youngest who would not be able to protect themselves during strong aftershocks.”

A government delegation, comprising ministers, members of parliament and deputies, travelled to Bukavu with 14 tonnes of aid supplies and 16 doctors.

According to the mayor, only 80 households, or 400 people, had received humanitarian assistance by the afternoon of 6 February, and that distribution had to be interrupted because of unrest.

“There were occasional fights because everyone wanted to be served first. But we have taken precautions to ensure the safety of distributions and do all we can to make sure everything is done in an orderly manner under the eyes of the police,” he added.

According to the OCHA spokesman, 312 people were injured in the weekend quake, 50 of whom were still receiving treatment. He added that 99 buildings had collapsed and 815 were unsafe for habitation.

A series of earth tremors that caused panic in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, has raised concerns over the country's ability to respond to sudden major disasters.

Major Stephen Sane, the acting head of Kenya's National Disaster Operations Centre, said Kenya lacked basic rescue equipment and the emergency medical services staff needed in the event of a serious earthquake.

His unit was created in 1998 after devastating floods, caused by the El Niño weather pattern, wreaked havoc on Kenya's infrastructure.

"Our disaster preparedness appears to be whimsical. It has not been taken seriously at the policy level," Sane told IRIN, adding that the country also lacked an emergency medical service and has to depend on the Red Cross.

According to Jeanine Cooper, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA-Kenya), Kenya is “ill-prepared” to respond to sudden catastrophes such as earthquakes or a terrorist attack.

She commended the country's preparedness and early warning systems for drought, but said flood readiness “left a lot to be desired” and could benefit from risk mapping initiatives.

Lessons from history

Sane said little has been learned from the experiences of the American embassy bombing in Nairobi in 1998. The explosion caused an adjacent four-storey building to collapse, burying hundreds of people. The Kenyan government had to ask for help from foreign rescue teams. Most impressive, Sane said, were an Israeli team who arrived in Nairobi 24 hours after the blast and managed to save a number of people. The death toll from the attack was 213.

"The Israelis brought the realisation of the need for specialised training in search and rescue," said Sane. A Kenyan rescue unit has since been trained in Israel, but the government does not have the equipment to look for bodies and survivors buried under rubble.

When a building under construction in Nairobi collapsed in 2006, burying dozens of workers alive, Kenya had to once again seek Israeli help.

Sane said a disaster management policy paper, which would pave the way for the formulation of legislation on the issue, has been awaiting Cabinet approval since 1999. "We should be more proactive," he said.

Building regulations

A series of earthquakes and tremors in July 2007 - whose epicentres were in Tanzania, but were felt strongly in Nairobi - prompted the Architectural Association of Kenya to express concerns over the lack of building law enforcement in the country.

The association's chairman Gideon Mulyungi estimated that 90 percent of buildings outside Nairobi's city centre were not constructed by professionals.

"We could have a major disaster on our hands in the event of a powerful earthquake," he said. "We have been pushing the government to audit all buildings in Kenya to establish their safety."

The ministries of Public Works and Local Government confirmed that the audit was under way.

Despite the apparent slow progress in adopting national disaster response mechanisms, it has been recognised that a regional approach to the issue could strengthen the state's capacity.

An inter-governmental initiative, Golden Spear, supported in part by the US military, aims to strengthen regional capacity in disaster response and preparedness.

Egypt, Djibouti and Rwanda have already ratified an agreement, establishing the Golden Spear initiative. Kenya and Uganda are expected to follow suit in late August, according to Frank Sabwa, finance officer at the Disaster Management Centre of Excellence in Nairobi.

Other Golden Spear member states are Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Seychelles and Tanzania. Eritrea and Ethiopia initially expressed willingness to join the initiative, but have not yet signed the memorandum of agreement.

Sabwa said the ratified Golden Spear agreement would be passed on to the UN and the African Union to raise funding. Member states would also be able to set aside funding from their own national budgets.

"The initiative is expected to raise early warning capacities within acceptable levels and become an operational hub for information sharing and disaster response," said Sabwa.

An earthquake is characterised by vibrations generated in the crust of the Earth during the sudden rupture of rocks that accumulated elastic strain and then rebounds. The vibrations produced can vary from hardly perceptible to appallingly damaging. Earthquakes have the potential of releasing energy more than a thousand times greater than the world's first atomic bomb.

There are three general types of earthquakes being recognised: volcanic, tectonic, and artificially produced. Among the three, the tectonic type is by far the most destructive, and this same type of earthquake establish specific intricacies for scientists attempting to build on methods of predicting them

Earthquakes bring about several aspects of concern to the people residing in these so-called seismically active areas. This natural calamity can produce immense loss of life by annihilating structures like bridges, buildings, dams, and other infrastructures and it can even start devastating landslides.

Another fatal result of earthquakes is the creation, oftentimes by undersea vibrations, of so-called tidal waves. Since such waves are not related to the tides, they are more appropriately called as seismic sea waves or tsunamis. These high rising walls of water have smacked inhabited coastal areas with such fierce rage that whole towns have been damaged.

Seismologists, the scientists who study earthquakes, have created two measurement scales that would enable them to categorise earthquakes quantitatively. First is the Richter scale, which was coined in honor of the American seismologist Charles Francis Richter. It gauges the energy given off at the focus of a quake. Its scale ranges from 1 to 9. One being the weakest and 9 as the most destructive.

The other scale is the Mercalli scale that was introduced during the start of the 20th century by the Italian seismologist Giuseppe Mercalli. It measures the intensity of shaking with gradations from I to XII. The Mercalli rating depends on the site where the measurement was taken since the seismic surface effects decrease with distance from the focus of the quake. Intensity I on the Mercalli scale is described as an earthquake perceived by very few people, while intensity XII is designated to a disastrous occurrence that brings about full-blown devastation.

Efforts on forecasting the time and place earthquakes will take place have had some positive accomplishments in recent times. At the moment, countries like Russia, Japan, China, and the United States are the nations putting in significant efforts to support earthquake research. Several predicted occurrences of earthquakes date back in 1975 when the Chinese forecasted a 7.3 Richter scale magnitude quake at Haicheng, that made them evacuate less than a hundred thousand inhabitants only a couple of days before the quake actually happened which damaged or destroyed 90 per cent of the city's buildings. Low-magnitude vibrations or tremors or foreshocks are some indicators of an incoming earthquake. Some other possible hints being inspected are bulging or titling of land surfaces and modifications in the magnetic field of the earth, in the depth of wells, and even in behaviour of animals.

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Livestock herders living near Ol Doinyo Lengai in northern Tanzania have abandoned pastures on the slopes of the mountain after tremors believed to be the result of volcanic activity, a government official said.

"We have advised residents of Engaresero village who had taken their livestock to pastures on the slopes of the mountain to move away from the area," Jowika Kasunga, the commissioner in charge of Ngorongoro district, where the mountain is situated, told IRIN on 20 July.

He said the village, at the foot of the mountain, was inhabited by an estimated 5,000 people, some of whose houses had developed cracks after the intermittent tremors between 12 and 18 July.

The 'swarm' of earthquakes has caused alarm in several parts of Tanzania and neighbouring Kenya.

"People are worried but they are still in their homes," said Kasunga. He denied media reports that the mountain had spewed lava, forcing people to flee. However, tourists have been advised to avoid the area.

He said local authorities had embarked on a disaster awareness campaign that focused on what people should do in the event of a major earthquake and advising them to evacuate if the volcano erupted.

Christine, a resident of Arusha, about 100km southeast of Ol Doinyo Lengai: "Yesterday [19 July] there was an announcement on the television and the radio. We were advised not to stay near tall buildings or trees, and try to seek protection.

"At the time of the first tremor I was at home, in my bed. I just stayed in bed and waited for the tremor to end. If it had lasted longer, or if it had been stronger, I might have gone outside," she said.

"Of course I am afraid, I am not very sure about what is going to happen," said Christine, who gave only her first name. She said the wall of a government building in Arusha had cracked.

Tanzania's chief geological expert on 19 July advised residents living close to the Ol Doinyo Lengai to stay at least 50km away from the mountain.

As a precaution, Abdul Mruma, chief executive officer of the Geological Survey of Tanzania, added: "The safest distance to stay away, however, is 100km."

The most powerful quake, on the afternoon of 17 July, was estimated at 5.9 on the Richter scale.

The US Geological Survey, which has been monitoring the tremors, said the information available was "not sufficient to determine if the current activity reflects a geologic process that might lead to a change in the eruptive behavior of Ol Doinyo Lengai". The last major eruption of the volcano was in 1966.

Mohammed Mhita, the director-general of Tanzania's Meteorological Agency, also played down fears of an imminent eruption.

In neighbouring Kenya, authorities stepped up disaster preparedness after the quakes caused panic in the capital, Nairobi.

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua said all office buildings, schools, factories, apartment blocks and other buildings should have emergency evacuation procedures and contingency plans ready.

A series of earth tremors centred in northern Tanzania has caused alarm in Kenya and Tanzania. The most powerful quake, on the afternoon of 17 July, was estimated at 5.9 by the US Geological Survey (USGS) on the Richter scale.

The USGS reported that the 'swarm' of earthquakes was close to the Ol Doinyo Lengai mountain, an active volcano on the floor of the Rift Valley in northeastern Tanzania, close to the Kenyan border. However, the agency stated that information so far available was "not sufficient to determine if the current Tanzania swarm activity reflects a geologic process that might lead to a change in the eruptive behavior of Ol Doinyo Lengai". The last major eruption was in 1966.

Geology professor Eliud Mathu said at least 10 major tremors were felt in Tanzania and Kenya between July 12 and 18.

Mathu also said investigations into the tremors, which he described as "abnormal and strange", would continue.

Fred Belton, a mathematician at Middle Tennessee State University (USA), has climbed Ol Doinyo Lengai 11 times and spent more than 100 nights on the mountain, studying the relations between barometric pressure and lunar cycles and the volcano.

He said: "It is extremely interesting that the quakes are centred near Ol Doinyo Lengai but this does not mean it will erupt. The quakes may just be tectonic, indicating movement in the Rift Valley, and do not necessarily mean lava is moving."

No major damage has been reported, but several of the tremors caused panic in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, when buildings shook violently. Rumours of a looming major earthquake caused the evacuation of workers from several high-rise buildings in Nairobi city centre on 18 July, as uncertainty spread.

"We should all be diligent and watch out for signs of any earthquake. We should not panic. Life should continue as normal," said Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua.

The tremors also affected the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha. The building housing the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was evacuated on 17 July, said Danford Mpumilwa, the tribunal's spokesman.

Kenya's main international seismic station at Kilimambogo, about 40km northeast of Nairobi, recorded the tremors and data was being analysed by both Kenyan experts and the USGS.