Powerful quake jolts Albania

Emergency workers clear debris at a damaged building in Thumane after an earthquake hit Albania. AFP

TIRANA, Albania (AFP) — Six people died and some 150 were injured in Albania after the strongest earthquake in decades rocked the Balkan country early Tuesday, destroying buildings and burying victims in rubble.

The epicenter of the 6.4 magnitude quake was about 34 kilometers northwest of the capital Tirana, at a depth of 10 km, according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center.

“We have victims,” Prime Minister Edi Rama wrote on Twitter. “We are working to do everything possible in the affected areas.”

The quake struck at 3:54 a.m. local time and sent panicked residents running out onto the streets of Tirana, with people huddling in the open, an AFP correspondent said.

The worst damage appeared to be around the coastal town of Durres. The quake was the strongest to hit this region since 1926, Albanian seismologist Rrapo Ormeni told local television.

Three bodies were pulled from the ruins of damaged buildings in the port town, where a three-story hotel collapsed and other buildings were damaged, according to the defense ministry.

The bodies of a man and a woman were uncovered in rubble in the nearby town of Thumane, the ministry said.

A man in his fifties died after he jumped out of his building in panic in the town of Kurbin, the defense ministry said.

Some 300 armed forces personnel have rushed to Durres and Thumane for rescue operations, where “there are people trapped under the ruins,” defense ministry spokeswoman Albana Qahajaj said.

In Thumane, around a dozen rescuers used an excavator to dig through a mountain of debris in search of possible victims.

At least 150 people with injuries have sought first aid in Tirana and Durres, Health Minister Ogerta Manasterliu said.

In Thumane, soldiers, rescuers and families were sifting through the rubble of a collapsed five-story building as cries of people trapped under debris were heard, an AFP reporter said.

The tremors were felt across the Balkan region, from Sarajevo to Bosnia and even in the Serbian city of Novi Sad almost 700 kilometers away, according to reports in local media and on social networks.