Quake shakes Uganda and Congo, no injuries reported

KAMPALA, Feb 19 (Reuters) - An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.7 struck the Lake Albert region of western Uganda and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday, officials said, but there was no immediate word of casualties or damage.

"An earthquake passed here but it did not hurt anyone or destroy any property," Andrew Diboi, police chief for western Uganda, told Reuters by telephone.

Earthquakes are common in the western Great Rift Valley -- a seismically active fault line straddling western Uganda, eastern DRC 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.

Disease, hunger risk in Mozambique flood struggle

MAPUTO, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Mozambique's national disaster agency, already struggling to get food and clean water to thousands of victims of flooding, warned on Monday the worst could be yet to come as the rainy season gets under way.

Paulo Zucula, the country's top disaster official, said there was only one helicopter working to bring relief supplies to people stranded in isolated evacuation centres, raising the spectre of malnutrition and disease.

"At least 4,000 people in the district of Mopeia have not received food and clean drinking water. They are starving and some diseases such as malaria and cholera are looming," he told Reuters by telephone from Caia, where the central relief office has been established.

Zucula said a number of evacuation centres were not accessible by road, leaving a single U.N. helicopter as the only way to get food and other supplies to the refugees.

"We were not prepared ... it's another disaster," he said.

More than 87,000 people have been affected by several weeks of flooding in Mozambique's Zambezi river valley, which in 2000 and 2001 suffered a major flood disaster that killed 700 people and displaced half a million more.

The reported death toll this year is only about 40, but officials are bracing for a possible surge in the numbers of displaced people as continued rains in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe drain into the already-flooded Zambezi.

Mozambique officials are attempting to control the situation by regulating water discharge from the country's massive Cahora Bassa Hydro-Electric dam, but this could become more difficult if flood waters continue to flow into the dam.

"We expect that scenario in two or three weeks ... our contingency plan is for 285,000 (displaced) people, but this number is likely to double," Zucula said.

Meanwhile, Mozambique's Red Cross has appealed for $5 million in food assistance to help feed more than 50,000 people scattered in 53 accommodation centres throughout the central provinces of Manica, Tete, Zambezia and Sofala.

"There is not enough food for everybody, some centres (in Zambezia) have not received food at all. We need help to reduce the effects of hunger, Red Cross Secretary-General Fernanda Texeira told the national television on Monday.