February 05, 2008	Tuesday	Muharram 26, 1429

CYANGUGU (Rwanda): The earth shook and the Rwandan congregation, which had been in the middle of prayers, looked upward to see the heavy wooden frame of their church come crashing down.

Ten people were killed in the church in the small town of Shangi, one of the worst hit districts from the two big earthquakes that struck Central Africa on Sunday.

The biggest quake struck as many churches were packed for Sunday services and several collapsed under the force. Over 40 people were killed and more than 450 injured in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.“We felt heavy shaking. Part of the roof timbers fell on the women’s side, and I was hit on the chest and head,” said 20-year-old Dative Mukanyhita, who was inside the Shangi church.

She just remembers the cries, the incomprehension and the clamour of the wooden beams engulfing the congregation. Her brother, seated in the men’s section, left unscathed. “Praise be to God”, added the girl, whose swollen face is partially covered by bandages.

“It was the parishioners who got me out of the rubble. Then the Red Cross arrived,” she said.

Like dozens of the injured, Dative was brought to the Gihundwe general hospital in Cyangugu -- a lakeside city near the border with the DR Congo.

Roman Catholics are the dominant religion in the region and most were in mass on Sunday morning when the quake measuring 6.0 on the open-ended Richter scale hit.

Salima Mukamugwere, 42, sat at the bedside of her 10-year-old son Idie. Idie was at Kamende Quranic school, near Cyangugu, where most of the city’s Muslim children attend. He was trampled by the crowd as it rushed out of the school, fearing the building would collapse.

“I took him home but he had difficulty breathing. I called the Red Cross who came to fetch him. I have hope, because the care is free. And the government promised that if he is not okay, he will be evacuated to (the capital) Kigali,” she said.

Dozens of patients have already been evacuated by army helicopters to the general hospital in Kigali, according to Prince Byadunia, a doctor from Gihundwe hospital.

“Here, we do not keep those who are seriously injured,” said Byadunia.—AFP