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Earthquake shakes Athens
January 8, 2006
On
Sunday, an earthquake rocked the country of Greece early in the afternoon.
Seismographs have recorded the earthquake as a 6.7 (estimated) on the
Richter Scale.
There
are only reports of minor damage at the island of Kythira, including 3
injuries.
The
earthquake took place at 1:34 pm local time (1134 UTC) and was felt,
according to locals, throughout Greece and as far away as Cairo, Egypt, and
the coasts of Jordan.
This is
unusual, as previous major quakes in the highly-seismic Mediterranean
country have been limited to a relatively small region.
The
quake's epicenter was located about 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of
Athens near Kythira, the US Geological Survey institute said.
Amending its previous report of a magnitude of 6.4, the USGS, based in
Colorado, and the National Earthquake Information Center in Denver gave a
preliminary magnitude of 6.7.
However,
the Thessaloniki Aristotelion University's Seismology Laboratory and the
Patras seismic monitoring station have recorded the quake at a magnitude
6.9.
Aftershocks have been recorded near the epicentre, however were not as
powerful as the original earthquake.
A
witness in Athens at the time of the quake described the general mood as
calm.
More
than 100 people died following an earthquake in Athens, Greece, in 1999. |
