KENYA'S RIFT VALLEY

FAULTLINE slices through Kenya's Rift Valley, and families begin fleeing for their lives.

MAI MAHIU : EIiud Njoroge and his wife were inside their house in Kenya's Rift valley when a crack appeared in the cement floor and started spreading.

As they raced out they already knew it was more than a construction fault. Other cracks had started to appear on their town's main road -

A major thoroughfare to the Mansai Mara nature reserve - after weeks of rain, floods and tremors.

In the days that followed, geologists started to take full stock of  the disaster - a giant fissure, kilometres long, slicing through the road and surrounding country-side - a harsh reminder-

That Kenya's majestic Rift Valley, a tourist hotspot, sits on some of the most unstable ground on the continent.

''My wife screamed for the neighbors to come and help us remove our belongings,'' Njoroge said, remembering when they first noticed the crack in their home in the town of Mai Mahiu on March 18.

''People on the ground should be sensitive especially when it rains. Checking whether there are cracks, ground that is sinking or tremors,'' said geologist David Adele

''The crack runs almost in a straight line so you can project. If you see a crack coming your way, get away, he added

In the very long term - over the next tens of millions of years - geologists say the underlying tectonic fault would split the continent in two. [Reuters]