A large split, stretching over several miles has suddenly appeared in Eastern Africa causing a part of Nairobi-Narok highway in Kenya to collapse.

The massive opening, which is running for several kilometers, is believed to be 50 feet wide. According to the Daily Mail, the tear at Kenya’s Rift Valley is feared to be growing and came along with seismic activities in the area.

While explaining causes about the rupture, The Sun quoted Postdoctoral Researcher Dr. Lucia Perez Diaz at the Fault Dynamics Research Group, University of London saying, “Activity along the eastern branch of the rift valley, running along Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, became evident when the large crack suddenly appeared in south-western Kenya.”

The process is coined as ‘continental rifting’. The term refers to deformation of lithospheric plates – regions of Earth’s crust and upper mantle – because of lateral stress, which leads to a gap forming in the deformed region.

Dr. Diaz added that rifts are the first stage of a continental split and can shape a new ocean basin ‘over a period of tens of millions of years’. “The ocean will flood in and, as a result, the African continent will become smaller and there will be a large island in the Indian Ocean composed of parts of Ethiopia and Somalia, including the Horn of Africa.”

Tech Times has reported that the split has damaged several houses along the way. One of the affected residents, a 72-year-old woman was reportedly eating dinner with her family when the incident happened causing her house to split into two.