Over 300 homes have been destroyed and several people displaced after several big cracks developed following heavy rain in Bupoto Sub County and Namisindwa town council in Namisindwa district, Uganda on May 23, 2018.
The fissures in the ground go right through people's houses, gardens and bridges have been washed away. Like Kenya, Uganda is situated in the valley of the East African Rift, which is in the process of splitting the African Plate into two new separate plates - the Nubian Plate and the Somali Plate.
After giant cracks opened up in Kenya, now Uganda has its own cracks. Something big is happening in the region right now! Just to say...
Here some more pictures of the dramatic situation... As if an earthquake had just struck the area:
Earth cracks open up in Uganda, destroying more than 300 homes with dozens of people evacuated.
The Great Rift Valley is a name given to the continuous geographic trench, approximately 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) in length, that runs from Lebanon's Beqaa Valley in Asia to Mozambique in Southeastern Africa.
Today, the term is most often used to refer to the valley of the East African Rift, the divergent plate boundary which extends from the Afar Triple Junction southward across eastern Africa, and is in the process of splitting the African Plate into two new separate plates.
A map of East Africa showing some of the historically active volcanoes (red triangles) and the Afar Triangle (shaded, center)-a triple junction where three plates are pulling away from one another: the Arabian Plate, and the two parts of the African Plate (the Nubian and the Somali) splitting along the East African Rift Zone (USGS). The East African rift has two branches, the Western Rift Valley and the Eastern Rift Valley.
The Western Rift, also called the Albertine Rift, is bordered by some of the highest mountains in Africa, including the Virunga Mountains, Mitumba Mountains, and Ruwenzori Range. It contains the Rift Valley lakes, which
include some of the deepest lakes in the world (up to 1,470 metres (4,820 ft) deep at Lake Tanganyika).
Much of this area lies within the boundaries of national parks such as Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwenzori National Park and Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda, and Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. Lake Victoria is considered to be part of the rift valley system although it actually lies between the two branches. All of the African Great Lakes were formed as the result of the rift, and most lie within its rift valley.
In Kenya, the valley is deepest to the north of Nairobi. As the lakes in the Eastern Rift have no outlet to the sea and tend to be shallow, they have a high mineral content as the evaporation of water leaves the salts behind.
For example, Lake Magadi has high concentrations of soda (sodium carbonate) and Lake Elmenteita, Lake Bogoria, and Lake Nakuru are all strongly alkaline, while the freshwater springs supplying Lake Naivasha are essential to support its current biological variety.
The southern section of the Rift Valley includes Lake Malawi, the third-deepest freshwater body in the world, reaching 706 metres (2,316 ft) in depth and separating the Nyassa plateau of Northern Mozambique from Malawi; it ends in the Zambezi valley.
The African continent is splitting in two. First
cracks opened up in Kenya. Now fissures spread to Uganda
. Something big is going on in the African Great Rift Valley... Just to say.
Comment: Since when did heavy rains cause gaping splits in the ground? This event in Uganda is just the latest in a recent spate of epic fissures, sinkholes and landslides: