|
Magnitude 7.5 earthquake hits Mozambique
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-23 09:35
A powerful earthquake struck Mozambique early Thursday morning, shaking
buildings and forcing people from hundreds of miles around to dash into the
streets for safety.
The magnitude-7.5 quake struck at 12:19 a.m. and was
felt as far away as Durban, South Africa, and Harare, Zimbabwe, the U.S.
Geological Survey said.
Buildings swayed and doors shook in Maputo, the capital of the Indian Ocean
nation of Mozambique, officials said.
There was no immediate word of injuries or damage there, but state radio said
there was an unconfirmed report of a collapsed building in Beira, a coastal port
140 miles southwest of the epicenter.
In Beira, Tivoli Hotel manager Johana Neves said none of her guests were hurt
but many tourists ran terrified from their rooms when the temblor struck.
"It felt like the building was going to fall down and it went on for a long
time, the trembling," she said by telephone. "It felt like you were in a boat,
it was shaking everything yet, it's strange, nothing is broken, even the
windows."
She said guests had returned to their rooms. But Antonio Dinis, who also was
at the hotel, said the streets were full of people afraid to go back home or
sleep.
In Maputo, hundreds of people fled their homes for the street, as they did in
Chimoyo, some 300 miles from Beira near the border with Zimbabwe, the radio
station said.
A newspaper editor in Maputo said he was in the 11th floor of an apartment
building that was rocked by the quake.
"It shook a lot. We could feel it very strongly," Fernando Velosa, editor of
Jornal de Mocambique, told Lisbon radio station TSF. Portugal is the former
colonial ruler of the African nation.
The quake was shallow, which increases the potential for damage, said Dale
Grant, a geophysics with the USGS National Earthquake Information Center in
Golden, Colo., which is a clearinghouse for temblors worldwide.
A quake nearing magnitude 8 is capable of causing tremendous damage.
"It was felt very widely in in the epicentral area, though it's not a very
heavily populated area," Grant said. "There is certain to be damage, but so far,
we've had absolutely no word of damage."
|
