In Brief
HANIA QUAKE
No injuries or damage after 4.9 tremor A strong undersea quake, measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale, shook the Cretan prefecture of Hania at 10 p.m. on Saturday but no damage or injuries were reported. The quake, whose epicenter was located off the island’s western coast, was felt particularly strongly in Palaiohora, Sfakia and on the island of Gavdos. Climber death A 42-year-old climber was killed yesterday morning after she fell into a deep ravine while climbing Mount Olympus. Niki Mitropoulou, a teacher from Athens, fell some 400 meters into a ravine from an altitude of about 2,500 meters on the ascent to the mountain’s summit. Mitropoulou’s body was retrieved by fellow climbers. It was unclear what caused the fall. Train derails None of the 65 passengers on a train bound for Athens from Patras were harmed after an empty carriage went off the rails near Aghioi Theodori, around 90 kilometers (56 miles) west of Athens, just before 6.30 p.m. on Saturday. An investigation into the cause of the accident was under way, the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE) said. The train continued its journey to Athens 45 minutes later after the derailed carriage had been removed, OSE said. Base reopens Deputy Defense Minister Yiannis Lambropoulos yesterday announced that a former military base at Maleme, west of Hania, would be reopening as a training base for counterterrorist officers. Deputy Public Order Minister Christos Markoyiannakis, a local MP, expressed his satisfaction that the base would reopen. It had closed last year after operating since 1956. Cyprus commissioner Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos yesterday proposed that Marcos Kyprianou be reappointed as Cyprus’s European commissioner. Papadopoulos made the proposal ahead of the reappointment of Commission members by the new EC President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso. Remembering 1974 President Costis Stephanopoulos, whose second five-year term ends next spring, on Saturday hosted his last commemoration of the anniversary of the return of democracy after the fall of a military dictatorship in 1974. The annual ceremony in the gardens of the Presidential Palace is attended by representatives of all the groups that play a role in the state, from the political, judicial, military and Church leadership to journalists.
