21/10/2005 07:54
Ankara - A strong earthquake rocked the western Turkish city of Izmir early on Friday, causing one person to die of a heart attack and leaving several others injured, local officials said.
Panic gripped residents as the tremblor struck at 00:40, the fourth strong earthquake to shake the region since Monday.
The Istanbul-based Kandilli observatory announced that the quake measured 5.9 on the open-ended Richter scale and occurred under the Aegean Sea off the coast of Seferihisar, 40km southwest of Izmir.
The Athens observatory said the tremblor measured 6.0 and was felt in Greek islands in the eastern Aegean Sea, but caused no damage or casualties.
Panic was widespread
The United States National Earthquake Information Centre, meanwhile, put the quake's intensity at 5.8 and said it occurred about 50km off the coast of Izmir.
A spokesperson for the Izmir governor's office told AFP that a 68-year-old person died of a heart attack while running down the stairs of his house in panic.
Fifteen people sought treatment at hospitals after jumping off balconies and windows, governor Oguz Kagan Koksal told the CNN-turk news channel.
Several others suffered from panic attacks.
Media reports said residents of Izmir, the country's third biggest city, and nearby towns were afraid to go into their houses and were preferring to stay out in the open.
Some were sleeping in their vehicles or in makeshift tents, while others huddled together around bonfires, the NTV news channel said.
Officials said the quake did not cause extensive material damage.
In the nearby town of Urla, the roofs of four abandoned houses were damaged while the chimney of an old factory collapsed, the town's mayor Ahmet Mailoglu told CNN-Turk.
Schools were called off in Izmir and the surrounding province bearing the same name for one day.
Turkey's top seismologist warned residents to be vigilant and stay away from damaged or derelict buildings as the region, which is crossed by several faultlines, was likely to be shaken by more earthquakes.
"There is intense seismic activity in the region. We expect this activity to continue for some time but we cannot say until when," Gulay Barbarosoglu, the head of the Kandilli observatory told a televised press conference in Istanbul.
"The people of Izmir need to be vigilant and careful, but there is no need to panic," she added.
Izmir has been on edge since Monday when three violent quakes, measuring 5.7, 5.9 and 5.6 respectively, shook the area in one day, leaving some 30 people injured.
Turkey is prone to frequent earthquakes.
About 20 000 people were killed when two massive earthquakes struck the country's heavily industrialised northwest in August and November 1999.
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1821072,00.html
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