At least seven people have been killed in the most powerful earthquake to hit Albania in decades as it rocked the capital Tirana and surrounding region, causing buildings to collapse and burying residents under rubble.
Residents, some carrying babies, fled apartment buildings in Tirana after the 6.4 magnitude quake struck shortly before 4am on Tuesday.
In the nearby northen town of Thumane, Marjana Gjoka, 48, was sleeping in her apartment on the fourth floor of a five-storey building when the quake shattered the two top floors.
“The roof collapsed on our head and I don’t know how we escaped. God helped us,” said Gjoka, whose three-year-old niece was among four people in the apartment when the quake struck.
Trigger Warning: Small boy stuck in #earthquake rubbles in Albania. At least 8 killed and over 350 injured so far. Many people still trapped under the collapsed buildings 💔😢#PrayForAlbania 🙏 pic.twitter.com/gjDvxuvUp9
— Team Albanians (@TeamAlbanians) November 26, 2019
The quake was centred 30 kilometres west of Tirana, at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said, and was also felt across the Balkans and in the southern Italian region of Puglia.
Two women were found dead in the rubble of an apartment building in the northern town of Thumane, and a man died in the town of Kurbin after panicking and jumping out of a building, a Defence Ministry spokeswoman said.
The bodies of three other people were pulled from the wreckage of two collapsed buildings in Durres, the defence ministry said, and a man died near the northern town of Lezhe.
Firefighters, police and civilians were removing the debris from collapsed buildings that had trapped people in Thumane.
#earthquake in #Durres
First reported damages! #Albania pic.twitter.com/6jS3Nb0Xiv— Klaudja Karabolli (@KKarabolli) November 26, 2019
Most of the buildings that collapsed were built from bricks, a Reuters reporter said.
Two people were pulled out from rubble in Thumane four hours after the quake, a Reuters reporter on the site said.
Doctors said they were in bad condition.
Emergency workers told local media one of those killed was an elderly woman who had saved her grandson by cradling him with her body.
The quake was the second powerful tremor to hit the region in two months.
Three hours after the main tremor, a strong aftershock rocked Tirana.
🤲🏼🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/DTVqNXheqX
— Xherdan Shaqiri (@XS_11official) November 26, 2019
Located along the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, between Greece and Macedonia, Albania experiences regular seismic activity.
An earthquake of 5.6 magnitude shook the country on September 21, damaging around 500 houses and destroying some.
The Defence Ministry had said it was the most powerful quake in Albania in the past 30 years.
-AAP
The post ‘I don’t know how we escaped’: Powerful earthquake kills at least seven in Albania appeared first on The New Daily.
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