Earthquakes

I awoke to a loud rumbling and my bed shaking. My house creaked and groaned, while everything on my shelves hummed and rattled. In a barely conscious state, I realized that I was experiencing what seemed to be a sizable earthquake. It occurred to me that it might be safer to be outside, but before I could rouse myself enough to decide what to do the 'quake had passed. Seconds later I heard rumbling again, heralding the first of several aftershocks that rattled my house. My neighbors told me that they were terrified and ran outside at 3:30 AM. This afternoon we learned that it was a 5.0 earthquake centered not far south of here. Living in the Albertine rift valley, the same fault line that created the majestic Rwenzori mountains just to the east of me makes earthquakes a reasonably common experience. There have been several recently, most of which I haven't even felt, but this one seems to have been the biggest in quite a while.

While I don't think any buildings here were damaged (and I have no information about towns closer to the epicenter), it certainly causes me concern as Bundibugyo district is rapidly developing and larger buildings seem sure to be built in the near future. In a place where most houses are made of mud, you can imagine the damage that a serious earthquake could do. But the even more dangerous buildings would be larger ones that are cheaply built. There hasn't been a serious earthquake here since 1993, so it's certainly not an everyday occurrence, but as electricity comes into the district, with plans to pave the road, it is clear that this place is changing, and larger buildings, combined with little no regulation of building codes - if they even exist - may be a dangerous development. One only has to look at the recent earthquake in Indonesia to see the damage that such an event can inflict on a developing country with countless poorly constructed buildings.