Rescue crews are searching for survivors trapped in toppled apartment buildings after a powerful pre-dawn earthquake in Albania killed at least 16 people and injured more than 600.
The 6.4 magnitude quake was felt across the southern Balkans early Tuesday and was followed by multiple aftershocks.
In nearby Bosnia, another temblor with a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 struck southeast of the capital and rattled Sarajevo. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage in that earthquake.
Greece and Kosovo promised to help with rescuers in Albania.
“It is a dramatic moment where we should preserve calm, stay alongside each other to cope with this shock,” Prime Minister Edi Rama said, thanking countries that offered support.
The Health Ministry reported about 600 people had been injured, with some in serious condition.
Rama said neighbouring countries, the European Union and the US had offered to send assistance.
Rama said he had spoken to his Italian, Greek and Turkish counterparts and with the EU and US embassies in Tirana.
The quake collapsed at least three apartment buildings while people slept, and rescue crews were working to free people believed trapped. There was no indication as to how many people might still be buried in the rubble.
The US Geological Survey said the magnitude-6.4 quake, which struck just before 4am local time, had an epicentre 30 kilometres northwest of the capital, Tirana, at a depth of 20 kilometres.
Scores of aftershocks included three with preliminary magnitudes of between 5.1 and 5.4.
“We are expecting multiple aftershocks following the main earthquake. That will pose a danger to human life.
“People in the affected areas should be aware of this danger,” said Akis Tselentis, director of the Geodynamic Institute of Greece, speaking in Athens.
Neighbouring Kosovo was sending an emergency crew, while Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis ordered a fire department rescue unit specialising in disaster response to travel to Albania, Greek authorities said.
Italy was sending specialised urban search and rescue teams from three Italian regions while Serbia, Romania, Turkey and Montenegro were sending search-and-rescue teams. The Turkish ambassador also said his country was sending a team of rescuers and medics.
The defence ministry said nine bodies were pulled from rubble in the coastal city of Durres, 33 kilometres west of the capital Tirana and five people were found dead in a collapsed apartment building in the northern town of Thumane.
One person died after jumping from his home to escape in Kurbin, 50 kilometres north of the capital, while another person was killed on a road that collapsed in the northern town of Lezha.
Local television stations showed footage of a young boy being pulled from a collapsed building in Durres after an excavator moved a broken slab of concrete and local men pulled mangled reinforcement bars out of the way.
Hours later, live TV footage showed people cheering when a child was found alive in a collapsed building in Durres where a body had been found earlier.
All government agencies were on alert and “intensively working to save lives at the fatal spots in Durres and Thumane,” Rama said.
About 400 soldiers were setting up tents in Durres and in Fushe Kruje near Thumane in the north to house survivors left homeless by the quake.
The quake was felt along the Albanian coast as well as neighbouring Kosovo, Montenegro, Greece, and parts of southern Serbia.
Authorities called on people in the most affected areas to stay out of their homes and avoid driving in the affected areas to allow emergency vehicles free access. Many reported seeing cracks in their apartment walls.
At least three apartment buildings and the power distribution station were damaged in Thumane.
An earthquake in September in roughly the same area damaged hundreds of homes.
Source: Stuff
Featured Image: Rescuers carry an injured woman in Thumane, western Albania. photo / Stuff
