Tourists among 17 killed as buildings tumble 'like cards'

TOM WILKIE

Science Editor

and agencies

An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale shook both sides of the Gulf of Corinth in Greece yesterday, destroying two buildings and killing at least 17 people, among them tourists from France and Italy.

An apartment building in Egion collapsed "like a house of cards" in the early hours of the morning, killing 10 people, including a 20-year- old Italian woman and three children. Up to 10 more people were still missing under concrete slabs.

A short distance outside the town a wing of the Eliki hotel, where 159 French tourists were spending their holidays, fell in ruins. By late afternoon yesterday seven people had been pulled dead from the rubble, including a French family of three and another French tourist. The French embassy in Athens said eight more French tourists staying at the hotel were missing.

The hotel's night watchman, Yannis Bougas, said he pulled two dead French holidaymakers from under the debris of the collapsed wing. "The quake was very strong," he said. "There was a loud noise and the whole world turned to dust."

Rescue teams were trying to pierce slabs of collapsed concrete to reach those trapped, but cries for help heard earlier had faded away. "Everything collapsed in five seconds," said Brian Clavaud, a Frenchman who worked at the Eliki hotel. French tourists huddled outside, as they watched rescue workers. Rescue teams from France and Switzerland were on their way to the scene to help the Greeks.

Greece is the third most popular foreign destination for British holidaymakers, but the Gulf of Corinth is off the beaten track for package tourists, most of whom go to Aegean resorts. The area mainly attracts individual visitors interested in its historic sites.

In the centre of Egion, bulldozers and cranes shifted the large slabs of concrete which were all that remained of the apartment block, but workers said the work was going very slowly. They feared few of those trapped would survive.

Eleni Seriato, 31, who lived on the third floor of the block, escaped with her 8-year-old son but her husband and 11-year-old son were trapped inside. "My husband was behind me when we were trying to escape," she said. "A piece of mortar fell on him and he was trapped." Officials later said her 11-year-old son was dead. Another woman, Flora Katsarioti, said she escaped to safety through a crack in a wall. "My mother was trapped in the next bedroom. I could hear her cries, but we were separated by rubble. We had to leave her behind," she said.

The earthquake's epicentre was under the seabed of the Gulf of Corinth. The main shock, at 1.15am British time, was felt as far away as the Albanian border and in Athens. It was followed 15 minutes later by a magnitude 5.5 aftershock. Heavy damage was caused between Egion and Patras, 38 miles to the west, as well as in Nafpaktos, on the opposite side of the Gulf.

Earth tremors are frequent across the whole of Greece and the Aegean Sea. Since 1960, the British Geological Survey's Global Seismology Unit has recorded 31 large earthquakes with a magnitude of 5 or more. More than 8,000 people are still living in tents in the central Kozani region after an earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale last month in which 25 people were injured.

The cause of yesterday's earthquake lies in the local conditions around the Gulf of Corinth. Although Africa is moving slowly north into the underside of Europe, at the gulf the earth's crust is stretching apart. Part of the land is sinking downwards, and this appears to be part of the reason that gulf itself has opened up. Occasionally the moving masses of rock lock together, and stresses build up to breaking point.