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Origin - On March 18, 2018, a huge crack began to appear after heavy rainfall in the Great Rift Valley region, Kenya. The crack, which until recently was covered with volcanic ash and hidden from view.

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Great Rift Valley - This is a low-lying region where tectonic plates split or move away from each other, according to National Geographic.

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East African Rift System - The Great Rift Valley is part of the larger East African Rift System which stretches thousands of miles through multiple countries. It's one of the largest rifts in the world. 

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Natural phenomenon -

According to a local newspaper, the Daily Nation, the huge fissure is the result of strong movement deep inside the Earth, which left deep, visible cracks in Narok county, Kenya.

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Wide-scale damage - Signs of damage were first seen on the busy Mai Mahiu-Narok road. At one point, the crack was 50 ft (15 m) deep and over 65 ft (20 m) wide, according to the Kenyan newspaper, the Daily Nation.

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Victims of the disaster - According to the same publication, families who live near the crack are beginning to move. Local resident Mary Wambui, who is 72 years old, fears that staying there is like dicing with death.

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Panic - Wambui was having dinner with her family on the day that the ground suddenly started to split under her feet, dividing her house in two.

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Tremors -

Another Kenyan man, Eliud Njoroge Mbugua, also saw the ground open inside his house, according to Reuters.

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Fear spreads - Other cracks began to appear in the city's main road after weeks of heavy rain, flooding, and tremors in the ground, according to Reuters.

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Helplessness - Eliud Njoroge Mbugua said his wife had begun to shout for neighbors to help them carry their belongings when they first noticed the cracks in their house, in the city of Mai Mahiu.

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Homeless - In the following days, the house became so unstable that it had to be demolished.

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Homeless - Reuters reported how the couple were still looking for somewhere to live.

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History - In an interview with the Daily Nation, geologist David Adede said he believed that the fissure had previously been filled with volcanic ash but that the heavy rains had washed that away, leaving the cracks exposed.

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History - The expert said that Great Rift Valley had a history of tectonic and volcanic activity.

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History - Adede said that the crack may have been tectonically inactive in recent times, but that movements deep in the Earth's surface has made this area into a 'zone of weakness' which stretched upwards to the planet's surface.

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What are 'zones of weakness?' - 'Zones of weakness' are fault lines and fissures which are usually filled with volcanic ash. In this case, the ash probably came from nearby Mount Longonot, explained the researcher to the Daily Nation.

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Process -

Plate tectonics is the theory that the Earth's crust is divided into various plates which move around on top of the mantle, an inner layer of hot rock, which surrounds the planet's core.

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Temporary solution - A local network, NTV, reported that the crack that had split the main road had already been filled in with a mixture of stones and concrete, and would function again as before.

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Temporary solution - Owing to the inevitability of the problems deep in the Earth's crust at the Suswa volcano, which is also in the Great Rift Valley, repair works by the Kenya National Highways Authority will only offer a temporary solution.

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Predictions - In an article on the site Conversation, researcher Lucia Perez Diaz, from the University of London, said that the crack would eventually divide Africa into two continents over the next tens of millions of years.

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Predictions - According to the scholar, the Great Rift Valley in East Africa is an area which extends over 1,860 mi (3,000 km), from north to south between the Gulf of Aden, near Somalia, and Zimbabwe.

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Predictions - As it is covered in volcanic rock, the specialist believes that the northern region could be the first to split apart.

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Predictions -

Diaz believes that the fissure, which appeared in the southeast of Kenya, will split the African plate into two parts, the Nubia plate, to the west, and the Somali plate, to the east.

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Predictions - She also explained that as the lithosphere is subjected to horizontal forces, it gets stretched, becoming thinner and thinner until a rupture occurs, causing a fissure.

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Predictions -

This process is accompanied by other natural phenomenons such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. According to Lucia Perez Diaz, fissures and cracks are the first stage of a continental split which, if it happens fully, will create a new ocean.

See also: Close calls that could have changed the course of history 

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