Earthquake in Turkey and Greece leaves at least two dead in Kos | World news

Earthquake in Turkey and Greece leaves at least two dead in Kos | World news

Two people have been killed and five more seriously injured on the Greek island of Kos after tourist destinations around the Aegean Sea were rocked by a 6.5-magnitude earthquake in the early hours. A further 200 people in Greek and Turkish coastal towns were injured.

Travel around the area is expected to be heavily affected, the UK government said, as many families prepare to head to the eastern Mediterranean for their summer holidays.

A holidaymaker in the Greek island of Kos, Michael Heckmann, told the Guardian: “It was very scary â€" the whole room was shaking when the earthquake hit. We were woken up when the beds were shaking and bending.”

He was staying with his wife and four children, aged 10, eight, five and one, at a hotel in the north of the island. “When I stood up, I was still being shaken and the whole room seemed to be moving around. It was really frightening. I woke up all my kids and told them we had to get outside. It was my first earthquake and was very scary,” Heckmann said.

Tom Riesack, who is staying at a resort in north-east Kos with his wife and nine-year-old twins, said: “We were literally shaken out of our beds from deep sleep. The whole room was shaking and we fled the room into the open.”

Riesack added that he and his family could still feel “scary” aftershocks, which experts have said could continue for up to two more weeks.

The earthquake struck at the start of the peak tourist season for Kos and Bodrum, Turkey, with many travellers expected to arrive in the coming weeks. This weekend would typically be one of the busiest for arrivals.

The damage caused by the quake was, however, much less than could have been expected for one of its size. The US Geological Survey said it was a very shallow quake â€" the focus six miles (10km) below the seabed â€" off Marmaris in MuÄŸla province, Turkey.

Fraport, the German-led consortium managing 14 regional airports in Greece, said Kos airport was operating “only with slight delays” and these should lessen during the course of the day. It said the airport’s runways and buildings had all been “extensively checked” for possible damage.

Ferries to Kos were suspended after damage to the port. The UK Foreign Office has updated its travel advice to reflect the disruption that is likely to follow as a result.

The epicentre was just six miles south of the Turkish resort of Bodrum and 10 miles from Kos.

One of the dead was identified by the Turkish government as Sinan Kurdoglu, while the other man was a Swedish national. They were killed when the ceiling of a bar in the centre of Kos Town collapsed. Five other people in the bar â€" two Swedes, two Greeks and one Norwegian - were seriously injured and flown to Crete for medical treatment. One is reported to have sustained extensive leg injuries.

Kos quake

The quake, the second exceeding magnitude 6 to hit Greece’s coastal region bordering Turkey in recent weeks, produced more than 100 aftershocks. A second tremor measuring 5.1 struck 16 miles south of Leros, after the initial earthquake at 1.53am local time. Three further tremors measuring 4.6, 4.5 and 4.7 followed.

Television footage from MuÄŸla province showed hundreds of people abandoning their buildings and waiting on the streets, as others ran away from buildings on roads.

A building near Bodrum was damaged by the quake. Photograph: Jannis Sydney/Twitter

Ethymios Lekkas, Greece’s top geology professor, said Kos should expect to be rattled by aftershocks “for up to two weeks”. He added that for an earthquake of such magnitude, the damage had been very limited. A similar 6.2-magnitude quake that hit Lesbos last month caused much greater destruction.

“With the exception of our two fellow human beings who died, the effects have been very small,” Lekkas said. “We have had a very big earthquake of 6.5 and only the port and two very big buildings have really been affected by it, which is very important and shows the level of construction.”

He said the aftershocks would gradually reduce tectonic tension in the region. “They will be well under five on the scale and won’t cause a problem,” he said. “I am not worried. Buildings on the island have shown great resilience because they have been constructed to strict antiseismic criteria.”

Lekkas also clarified that the wave caused by the quake and witnessed in Kos port was much smaller than originally reported. “It did not exceed 70 cm and was very small,” he said.

Yiannis Glynou, who heads the technical chamber in the Dodecanese islands, is in Kos surveying the impact on buildings. He told the Greek news agency AMNA: “The damage is limited to old stone buildings. New buildings on the island, including numerous hotel units, are showing almost none or no problems.”

A Greek government spokesman, Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, said that in contrast to the Lesbos quake the damage on Kos was limited. “Slowly, slowly life is returning to normality,” he said.

The UK Foreign Office has advised British tourists to follow the advice of local authorities and tour operators.

More than 600 people died in October 2011 in Turkey’s eastern province of Van after a 7.2 magnitude quake and powerful aftershocks. In 1999, two massive earthquakes killed about 20,000 people in the densely populated north-west of the country. A 5.9-magnitude quake in 1999 killed 143 people in Greece.

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