Rescue workers search for survivors in Rwanda quake
(Adds president quotes, updates death toll)
By Themistocle Hakizimana
CYANGUGU, Rwanda, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Aid workers pulled bodies from collapsed buildings in southern Rwanda on Monday after an earthquake that killed at least 44 people and injured hundreds across the Great Lakes region.
Near simultaneous quakes ripped through eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Rwanda on Sunday, toppling buildings and driving people from their homes. The first quake, with a magnitude of 6.0 and its epicentre in Congo, came at 9:34 a.m. (0734 GMT), followed by a 5.0 quake in densely populated southern Rwanda at 1:56 p.m. (1156 GMT).
"This is a catastrophe and we have set up an emergency team to handle the situation," President Paul Kagame told reporters in Kigali.
"The death toll from that quake stands at 38 while 464 were injured," he said.
In Congo, the acting governor of South Kivu province, Bernard Watunakanza, said at least six people had been killed and 238 seriously injured.
MORE SUPPLIES NEEDED
Watunakanza said they needed more supplies to treat so many wounded at the hospitals.
"We need surgical kits, X-ray film and other medical material. We need a lot of these kinds of things," he told Reuters by telephone.
South Kivu provincial health minister Timothe Kwalya said most Bukavu residents slept outside last night, and many still worry there could be more tremors.
"People are looking for their belongings amidst the rubble. They try to go into their houses, but they don't stay very long. They are still afraid," he said.
Earthquakes are common in the western Great Rift Valley -- a seismically active fault line straddling western Uganda, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and neighbouring Tanzania.
In 1994, a magnitude 6 tremor in the foothills of western Uganda's Rwenzori mountains killed at least six people. In 1966, a magnitude 7 earthquake killed 157 people and injured more than 1,300 in the Semliki Valley, also in western Uganda. (Additional reporting by Joe Bavier in Kinshasa and Arthur Asiimwe in Kigali, Writing by Jack Kimball; Editing by Nick Tattersall)
