Greece earthquake: Magnitude 6
Greece earthquake: Magnitude 6.9 rattles Turkey too
Greece earthquake: A 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northern Greece on Saturday, Harm was minor but in Turkey two hundred seventy people were reported hospitalized.
By Staff , Reuters May 24, two thousand fourteen
ATHENS/ISTANBUL — An earthquake of 6.9 magnitude struck off the coast of northern Greece on Saturday, sending panicked residents into the streets in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria, officials said.
In Turkey, about about two hundred seventy people were hospitalized, most with minor injuries, as a tremor shook buildings, the government disaster and emergency department (AFAD) said.
The quake also rattled Turkey’s most populous city, Istanbul, as well as the Aegean coastal city of Izmir and the popular tourism province of Antalya on the Mediterranean coast.
One person was in critical condition after hopping from a balcony in the western Turkish town of Canakkale, AFAD said.
Hurriyet Daily News reported thirty people injured leaping out of apartments in the town and patients in one hospital were evacuated after cracks emerged in the building.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake was magnitude 6.9 and occurred sixty nine km (42 miles) south-southwest of the Greek city of Alexandroupolis, inbetween the islands of Lemnos and Samothrace, at a depth of ten km (6 miles).
“It lasted very long and it was very intense. We haven’t got the total picture of the harm caused yet,” the mayor of Lemnos, Antonis Chatzidiamantis, told Mega TV.
One woman British tourist was slightly injured at the Aegean island’s airport when part of the ceiling collapsed, Chatzidiamantis said.
“It was very strong – cupboards, glasses, coffee cups, they all broke,” an elderly Lemnos resident told Greek radio.
Greek police said the quake had caused minor harm to shops and houses on the two islands.
Seismologists described the quake, which was felt across Greece, as “severe” and warned that aftershocks measuring over Five.0 magnitude were likely.
“It will certainly have a very rich aftershock activity,” seismologist Costas Papazachos told Ant1 TV. “There is obviously some reason for concern. we could lightly have aftershocks of Five, Five.Five or six magnitude,” he said.
Greece is often buffeted by earthquakes. Most cause no serious harm but a Five.9 magnitude quake in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine killed one hundred forty three people.
In Turkey, more than six hundred people died in October two thousand eleven in the eastern province of Van after a quake of 7.Two magnitude and powerful aftershocks. In 1999, two massive earthquakes killed about 20,000 people in Turkey’s densely populated northwest.
Saturday’s tremor was also felt across Bulgaria, where two women in the southwestern cities of Smolian and Petrich collapsed under stress, the government said in a statement.
“The entire house was wiggling. It was scary,” a resident in Bulgaria’s 2nd largest city Plovdiv, Gergana Petrova, told Concentrate News agency. (Reporting by Karolina Tagaris and Renee Maltezou in Athens, Asli Kandemir and Nick Tattersall in Istanbul, Jonny Hogg in Ankara and Tsvetelia Tsolova in Sofia)