AN EARTHQUAKE measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale occurred yesterday morning in the sea between Cyprus and Rhodes, where one person was killed.
The tremor was felt by residents of Paphos, Polis Chrysochous, Nicosia and Limassol. The Director of the Geological Survey Department, Polis Michaelides, described it as “very strong” and occurring at 6.26am.
The epicentre of the quake, he added, was beneath the seabed south-east of Rhodes, 445 kilometres south-east of Athens, at a depth of around 65 kilometres.
Residents and tourists fled their homes and hotels in panic. Dodecanese prefect Yiannis Mahairides said on Antenna radio that a 56-year-old woman died of head injuries when she tripped and fell on a staircase in the village of Masari on Rhodes as she ran to leave her home.
Buildings on Rhodes have suffered structural damage and there have been power cuts in several areas.
Local authorities in the affected areas appealed for calm and seismologists said that while Rhodes lies in a seismically active area, major aftershocks were not expected.
Back in Cyprus, Evgenia Vidal, who lives in the Nicosia suburb of Makedonitissa told the Mail: “I was in a deep sleep and suddenly woke up as I felt my bed shaking. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or not, but after feeling the bed shake for a while, I realised that it must have been an earthquake. I looked at my clock and it was exactly 6.28am,” she said.
“I wasn’t scared as I have felt similar tremors before and I just waited for the phenomenon to pass, before drifting off back to sleep.”
Petros Papapetrou, a resident of central Nicosia said: “Shaking woke me up around 6.30am and our entire six-storey building was moving. I looked over to my bookshelves and they were creaking.”
“The quake has the power to create a small tsunami but this possibility is reduced if its epicentre was at a great depth,” seismologist Efthymios Lekkas told state Net television.
In Cyprus, no damage has been reported.
The earthquake was also felt on the islands of Crete, Santorini, Cos, Karpathos, Samos, Symi and Leros, as well as in northern and central Israel.
No major damage was reported to any of Rhode’s buildings or historical sites by the quake, which the Athens Geodynamic Institute said had a preliminary magnitude of 6.3.
The US Geological Survey gave the magnitude as 6.4 however. Magnitudes often differ in the first hours and days after an earthquake.
Greece is one of the most seismically active countries in the world, but most of the quakes do not cause damage or injuries.
On June 8, a 6.5-magnitude quake struck near the western port city of Patras, about 120 miles west of Athens, killing two people, injuring more than 200 and damaging hundreds of buildings. In 1999, a magnitude 5.9 quake near Athens killed 143 people.
