NEWS

Experts play down afternoon earthquake

A minor earthquake that shook Athens yesterday caused no damage or injuries, and was described by experts as no cause for concern. The quake, which occurred at 3.38 p.m, registered 4.5 on the Richter scale and had its epicenter near the village of Psachna in central Evia, some 70 kilometers north of Athens. It was followed by a sequence of minor tremors. The Psachna area, close to the town of Halkida, was rocked by a series of earthquakes in June 2003, when 48 buildings suffered enough damage to be listed for demolition. Seismologists said Psachna lies at the end of a fault line that starts in Anatolia and caused the devastating earthquake that claimed thousands of lives in Turkey in 1999. «It causes a lot of earthquakes, most of which do not exceed 5 on the Richter scale,» Athens University professor of geology Efthymios Lekkas told Kathimerini.

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