Joy of knowledge

I had two letters today from kids at St Jude's. One was about Mr Sebastian and the other about Miss Genofeva – two of the teachers we sponsor at the school.


It is always great to get a letter from the kids. The kids letters come as those blue aerograms that I remember using so often when traveling and living overseas when younger. I guess that email has replaced the old aerogram for long distance writing in most parts of the world. So these blue aerograms trigger a host of foreign memories for me.

The kids' letters are mostly of the polite kind – like the thank you letters to aunts for unremarkable Christmas presents.

But the letter about Mr Sebastian really touched me, because the writer commented on the recent earthquakes in Northern Tanzania. She said that Mr Sebastian had previously taught the class about earthquakes and "we have already understood about that".

How knowledge transforms us! What a precious thing it is to understand the world we live in. How valuable this is – yet here in Australia we take it for granted because every child goes to school and learns vast amounts besides basic literacy and numeracy.

Support for the School of St Jude is the means by which hundreds of bright children from poor families can receive these gifts of understanding. The children of Tanzania can't get a basic education because the government does not collect enough tax revenue to cover the cost of even the basics. We have to take this on, and make a contribution. How else will these children learn to read and write, and understand what causes the earth to shake from time to time?


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Earthquake or volcano?

IRIN reports on the recent series of tremors in northern Tanzania.

Ol Doinyo Lengai last erupted in 1966

They report –

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.

Local authorities have embarked on a disaster awareness campaign that focuses on what people should do in the event of a major earthquake and advises them to evacuate if the volcano erupts.

Check out the IRIN news item for more details.

Tuesday earthquake

NOTE: Updates at the end of this post.

The United States Geological Survey reports a series of earthquakes in the Arusha region.

The centre of the quakes is about 100km north west of Arusha. They have registered magnitudes of about 5 or 6. That's about equivalent to a 30 kiloton nuclear explosion, according to the British Geological Survey. As a comparison, the recent earthquake in Japan that killed 9, injured 900 and displaced 10,000 was magnitude 6.8.

I think I'll take a look on Google Earth and see what that part of the country is like. It may be part of a national park, or it may be farmland. I'd like to find out more about the impact of these earthquakes in northern Tanzania.

UPDATE: News reports note that the earthquake tremors have been felt in Nairobi, but there are no reports of personal injuries or property damage. The Global Disaster and Alert Coordination System has rated it an Orange Alert - i.e. 'medium'.

IRIN (18 July) has some more details here.

A look at Google Earth reveals that the earthquakes are in the Lake Natron region, around the volacno, Ol Doinyo Lengai, as seen on the left of the this picture (click to enlarge). Arusha is at the bottom, near Mt Meru, and the yellow line is the border with Kenya.


UPDATE: The Daily News reports (18 July):

A POWERFUL earthquake shook western Arusha city yesterday, causing buildings to sway and sending thousands of people fleeing into streets.

No damage or injuries were immediately reported from the tremor that measured 6.0 on the Richter scale. It occurred at around 5pm, just as people were going back home for the evening and night.

The Director General of the Tanzania Meteorological Agency, Dr Mohamed Mhita, confirmed the earthquake, the third in three days and after several years of inactivity in an area dotted by extinct and dormant volcanoes, including the Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak. “The quake follows movements on the Great Rift Valley,” he added. The Valley is a fault line cutting through the middle of Africa from south to the Mediterranean Sea.

The quake was also felt in Nairobi and some parts of Dar es Salaam, he said. It lasted about a minute. The quake was also reported by the United States Geological Survey.

“A strong earthquake occurred this evening,” said Arusha Regional Police Commander, Basilio Matei over the phone. “I felt it myself in the office,” he added. The acting spokesman of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Mr Danford Mpumilwa, said that staffs were evacuated from the court’s building located at the Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC). ICTR is trying the key perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda under a United Nations mandate.

Staff of the East African Community and private occupants of the building also scampered out as the powerful quake rattled the town, hub of the country’s northern tourist circuit. "This is the highest magnitude ever recorded in the region for very long," said Mr Walter Maeda, a hotelier, who was at the roof top of his hotel and saw tables “dancing”.