Over 30 earthquakes that had hit Northern Malawi since 6th December 2009 .The series of earthquakes and aftershocks of magnitudes ranging from 4.6 to 6.2 .
Malawi is prone to earthquakes as parts of it lies on the Great Rift Valley, which may now be realigning itself, making it more unstable than it had been for a long time.This was being caused by what we called the rejuvenation of the fault lines.A fault is a line of fracture in the rocks where the two sides of the fault slide by each other. The movement can be up, down or sideways, and it is caused by pressure and tension in the rocks . When a sudden movement happens along one of these fault lines, an earthquake happens.
The earthquake had caused at least three people died and 200 injured .Many of the victims were treated for injuries such as broken bones and skin laceration at Karonga District Hospital . Most mud-and-thatch houses in the region had crumbled and left hundreds homeless . Malawi's president had visited the scene and gave out US$17,600 to the victims to buy relief such as food and tents .The government had also launched an emergency appeal to well-wishers including donors, religious organizations, business people and individuals for relief items such as family tents, blankets, plastic sheets, maize flour and other items .
Recent years,the natural disasters had occurred more frequently .I think the government should improve building by making them triangle shape so that it has a wide surface area at the bottom and they can’t topple over. Also, they should educated the citizens what they can do to prevent getting hurt during an earthquake.
Information are from
Raphael Tenthani, APhttp://blog.taragana.com/science/2009/12/20/strong-earthquake-hits-malawi-destroying-buildings-killing-3-and-injuring-about-200-1541/rt in an earthquake ,extracted 28-02-2010
http://afrisciheroes.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/the-missing-pieces-of-the-karonga-earthquake-puzzle/ extracted 28-02-2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8401720.stm extracted 28-02-2010
http://nthambazale.com/2009/12/the-december-2009-malawi-karonga-earthquakes/ extracted 28-02-2010
Raphael Mweninguwe http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1265533619995&pagename=Zone-English-Youth/YTELayout extracted 28-02-2010
