More than 40 were killed and 300 people were injured in the 6.1 magnitude earthquake that occurred on Sunday, 3 Feb 2009 at 9.35 am. The earthquake shook the South Kivu area on the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.

The disaster caused a lot of chaos and destroyed many buildings. It destroyed 16 church buildings, in which four were Nazarene, 12 schools which included a Nazarene school and 210 houses, and among them 11 were Nazarene homes. 230 people have been seriously injured and have been brought to hospitals in both Cyangugu, Rwanda(81) and Bukavu, DRCongo(149) to receive treatment.



The people living in the city of Bukavu (DRCongo) were required to spend the night outside for safety purposes. They were afraid more tremors would collapse and destroy the people's houses and causing harm to the people.



Such damages can be minimized if the houses and buildings were built of a stronger material and with a more solid foundation. As the houses will be more sturdy, they will not collapse as easily. If other people from other countries all over the world are willing to fork out a little money, better materials can be purchased and be used to build the buildings in the country.


Bibliography
- Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, http://www.ncm.org/news/press/democratic_republic_of_congo_rwanda_face_6.1_magnitude_earthquake/, extracted 04-02-2008

- http://www.ncm.org/images/uploads/RwandaCongo_earthquake.jpg

- http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/last_event/world_rwanda.jpg