After a severe earthquake in western Albania, the country receives international support. The European Union (EU) activated its disaster relief. Search and rescue teams from Italy, Greece and Romania are already on the way to the affected regions, said the EU Commission in Brussels.
In Tirana, the port city of Durres and some rural communities collapsed after the quake early in the morning houses. People ran in panic on the street. At least 20 people died, said the Ministry of Defense. Government agencies reported at least 600 casualties. Under the rubble many people are suspected. The police fired 1900 men to advance the search for buried people.
It was the worst earthquake in decades in the small Balkan country. The shock was felt widely in the region, such as in northwestern Greece, southern Serbia and parts of southern Italy.
"Everything wobbled"
The Institute of Earth Sciences in Tirana and the German Geo Research Center in Potsdam gave the magnitude of the earthquake at 6.3 and the US Earthquake Bureau (USGS) 6.4. According to Albanian sources, the epicenter was ten kilometers north of Durres and thirty kilometers west of Tirana.
The disaster occurred around 4 o'clock. "It roused me from sleep, I did not know what it was like, I felt my bed move," said a man from Tirana. "Then I noticed that everything was shaking, that the walls creaked." Several aftershocks followed, including a more violent at 7 o'clock with the magnitude 5.5.
Prime Minister Edi Rama traveled to the worst affected coastal town of Durres to get an idea of the situation. "All state organs were mobilized from the first moment to save every human life," he said. For Wednesday Rama said a planned visit to Berlin from Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Rescue teams deployed excavators to remove the debris from the collapsed buildings layer by layer. An EU civil protection team should assist the Albanian authorities in coordinating aid. To assess the damage, the forces can also use satellite images of the European Copernicus service.
Another quake in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Another 5.4 earthquake shook Bosnia-Herzegovina at 10.20. Its epicenter was located 80 kilometers south of Sarajevo, said the US earthquake station. This was about 250 kilometers from the epicenter of the Albanian quake. About damage is not yet known.
In Albania, the earth had last shaken in September. In the series of weaker earthquakes more than 100 people were injured and hundreds of buildings were damaged. The magnitude of these quakes was between 4.4 and 5.8. The Ministry of Defense then spoke of the worst earthquake in Albania for decades.
The Mediterranean is one of the most active earthquake regions in Europe. Albania is one of many coastal countries and has almost three million inhabitants.