SERIES OF EARTHQUAKES BRING TERROR TO MALAWI

Throughout the whole month of December in 2009, starting from December 6, a series of at least thirty earthquakes have occurred in Malawi, a southeast African nation.

Malawi is located on the East Africa Rift (a.k.a. Great Rift Valley), which is a huge piece of land that stretches from the Red Sea to Mozambique. The East Africa Rift has been gradually unzipping towards the south away from Africa and the sudden movements of these faults are the reason of the occurrence of this particular natural disaster, among many others.

On the Richter scale, the earthquakes are of magnitude 4.6 or greater, the largest measuring 6.2. There are a total reported number of 4 fatalities and hundreds and thousands are either injured or homeless. Many homes, buildings and roads have been destroyed and the Malawians are also undoubtedly badly shaken by the earthquakes, no longer sleeping in their houses during the night. Apart from that, the harvests were poor, introducing other problems as well.

The Malawian government has launched an urgent emergency appeal for relief items such as tents and plastic sheets, while also assisting the victims with similar items. The government has also urged more than 270 000 to leave their homes for safety.

To minimize damage from such events, it is important to keep track of the plate movements and for the country’s citizens to be well updated with the latest news of the movements and let them be fully aware of possible future earthquakes. The citizens must also be ready and well-prepared at any single point of time, should a sudden earthquake hit their nation. Although all these are certainly not easy tasks, it is still possible to accomplish this feat and if everyone plays their part and cooperates, lives could be saved.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(all sources mentioned below are not arranged in any particular order)

• Associated Press (unknown author) - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580674,00.html


• Unknown author - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8401720.stm


• Jim Gaherty and Donna Shillington - http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/research/malawi-earthquakes


• Nicole Johnston - http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-01-22-earthquake-swarm-shakes-malawi


• Frank Jomo - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=aoI5ffkYDmps


• Clement Nthambazale NYIRENDA, http://nthambazale.com/2009/12/the-december-2009-malawi-karonga-earthquakes/


• http://kids.yahoo.com/directory/Around-the-World/Countries/Malawi/Maps [image only]


• http://www.cuna.org/newsnow/10/system010710-7.html [image only]


• http://www.nowpublic.com/world/house-karonga-district-malawi-after-earthquakes [image only]


• http://www.instablogs.com/malawi/ [image only]

NOTE: Should the images be too small for you to see it clearly, I suggest that you save the image into your PC/Desktop and from there zoom in the image. For those who are unsure as to how to save images into the computer, right click on the image and click on "Save Picture As...".

Thank you very much for your kind attention; would appreciate it if you comment on my article (word count: 296 words).