By Martin Hellicar
THREE Cypriots are among the dead of the Athens earthquake, and a fourth was still missing under the rubble yesterday.Government spokesman Michalis Papapetrou announced the sad news yesterday morning.He named the Cypriot victims as Frosso Nicoletti, 37, from Larnaca, her daughter Evelin, 14, and Christos Papathomas, 44, from occupied Larnaca Lapithou. The missing person was Papathomas’ 16-year-old daughter Georgia, who was still trapped under the rubble of their home in the Athens suburb of Metamorphosis, Papapetrou said.Frosso and Evelin died in the rubble of a collapsed block of flats on Souliou street in the Menidi area of Athens.Over 80 people were killed in Tuesday’s quake, with over forty missing in the ruins and more than a thousand injured.On a happier note, Politisreported yesterday that Greek Cypriot Andreas Markou had been pulled from the ruins of the Ringomex factory in Athens by a Turkish rescue team.The team from Turkey located Markou under the rubble on Wednesday and managed to maintain communication with him in English during the long hours it took to dig him out.Ironically, the rescue team that saved Markou was named ‘Attila’ — the name Greek Cypriots give to the Turkish forces that invaded Cyprus in 1974.Earthquake relief donations continued to pour in from all quarters in Cyprus yesterday.The Church announced it was sending the “symbolic” amount of £10, 000 to Athens and that collections for quake victims would be taken up in all churches.The Association of Merchant Banks donated £100,000. Civil Servants’ union Pasydy gave £30,000, while the Cooperative Banks Movement announced a collection would be taken up from amongst its members.Left-wing opposition party Akel sent a “symbolic” £2,000. Ruling right-wingers Disy have already donated £5,000.Dinos Michaelides’ Adik announced the donation of an undisclosed “symbolic” amount.On Wednesday, the government pledged $1, 000,000 for Athens victims, ten times the amount sent to Turkey last month after a quake there killed over 15,000 people.A seven-member team of local relief experts is also on its way to Athens.Meanwhile, Interior Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou was yesterday promising swift action to ensure Cyprus would be prepared should a big quake come.An earthquake in Limassol on August 11, followed as it was by the deadly tremors in Turkey and Athens, has heightened public concern about building safety in the event of a major tremor.The Limassol quake damaged a large number of buildings but did not result in any loss of life.Christodoulou said a three-year plan to inspect the quake resistance of all existing buildings and all structures under construction was to be put into action.The minister also said a total of 1, 187 primary school buildings had already been inspected by quake experts and all measures necessary had been taken to ensure children would be safe in the event of an earthquake.He also vowed to instigate the immediate creation of emergency quake response teams for all districts. Bureaucracy was his only enemy on the project, Christodoulou said, adding that he would go as far as to hire more civil servants to work on setting up such teams, even if he did not get the necessary approval from above.
