NAIROBI, July 18 (Reuters) – High-rise buildings emptied and frightened office workers hurried home early after earth tremors struck Nairobi on Wednesday for a fifth day.

The government urged citizens not to panic as geologists blamed the successive quakes on stirrings underneath Ol Donyo Lengai, an active volcano 240 km (150 miles) southwest of Nairobi in Tanzania near the famed Serengeti plains.

Some residents rushed out of their houses still dressed in pyjamas on a false rumour that another earthquake was imminent.

The tremors, which have been striking since Saturday, have ranged in magnitude between 4.4 and 6.0, according to the United States Geological Survey.

“Yesterday I felt them, today I felt them. These tremors are worrying. I am scared of going near the buildings,” Susan Munyi, a secretary, told Reuters.

At least three big and sustained tremors struck the city of 3 million on Wednesday, while longer, gentler ones left people slightly dizzy in the late afternoon.

Many workers in Kenya’s high-rise office buildings were allowed to go home early. The tremors this week have been felt as far away as Rwanda. Tanzanian authorities reported no damage.

Nairobi was relatively safe, geologists said, because of its distance from the epicentre in the Tanzanian wilderness where lions, elephants, zebras and cheetahs make their homes.

“What we are feeling are the ripples,” said Eliud Mathu, head of the University of Nairobi’s geology department.

His colleague, Norbert Opiyo Aketch, added: “There is no need to panic.”

The last time a major earthquake struck east Africa was in December 2005, when a magnitude 6.8 quake sent workers scrambling out of buildings.

Nairobi lies along the Great Rift Valley, which owes its rugged beauty to epochs of volcanic and tectonic activity and which still remains geologically active.

GOD’S MOUNTAIN

Mathu said Ol Donyo Lengai — which means “God’s mountain” in the language of Maasai tribe that inhabits parts of Kenya and Tanzania — might erupt. Its last major eruption was in 1966 and lava flowed from it in 1988.

Days of jokes about the tremors soon gave way to fear as the ground kept shaking overnight in Nairobi.

By early Wednesday morning, some residents in an upmarket Nairobi area scurried out of their homes in pyjamas after hearing a rumour that American citizens had been told to evacuate and a quake was predicted to strike within hours.

The U.S. embassy denied any evacuation order had been given.

The government told Kenyans to remain calm and to check emergency plans for their buildings. But it strongly denied giving any evacuation orders or forecast of a major quake.

Aketch said Nairobi would be in bad shape should the epicentre move to the capital, which has suffered a rash of building collapses owing to shoddy construction.

“If it was under us, it would be disastrous,” Aketch said. (Additional reporting by Wangui Kanina and George Obulutsa)

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