Greetings to all. I'm Tricia Tan, a journalist reporting about news that happened in my country, Malawi. This is my official news blog for the general public and my focus is on natural disasters in my country. I speak my mind and sometimes, my words may indirectly offend you, hopefully, you all won't take it to heart. At the below of this blog, there'll be some links. Those are my fellow friends who are working as journalists too. There's a tagboard situated right below this column where you can tag and ask me questions. See the search engine above? You can search for my past articles there. They're worth reading too! That's all for now. Remember, See it, Read it, Know it.
This song is done by an African band and it has became an official song of Malawi's. Enjoy listening.
Breaking news!
History has repeated itself again. On December 20 2009, 1:19am, an earthquake hit Karonga (9.56°S, 33.56°E) which is situated in Northern Malawi.
According to geologists, parts of Malawi lie on the Great Rift Valley which resulted from volcanic eruption, thus prone to earthquakes and earth tremors. "Water has now started emerging from the cracks and no place within the area seems safe, there is a rift valley close to the lake and there could be flooding shortly," District Commissioner for Karonga, Gasten Mcheka, said. This is an example of a divergent plate boundary which also created the Atlantic Ocean. The magnitude for this earthquake is 5.9 and it had killed at least 3 people, which included a 1-year-old child, and injured 200 Malawians. Collapsed houses, roofs fallen in and huge gashes in the road where the Earth has split apart can be seen. At least six other people have been in hospital nursing various degrees of injuries - from broken bones to skin lacerations, resulting from falling shelves and walls. The earthquakes in Malawi have devastated local infrastructure in the Karonga district and left many thousands of people homeless.
The United Kingdom Department for International Development donated a total of 950,000 pounds to help victims as Malawi is listed as one of the poorest countries in the world but has a series of natural disasters over the years. The Malawian government has also set up a camp for displaced people, catering for about 7000.
As most of the victims injure themselves from falling shelves, I think it will be wise if we can fasten the shelves to the walls and hang wall fixtures away from places that people sit. The government can also have some programmes which help to educate Malawians on what to do in case of an emergency.
