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Albania Earthquake Kills at Least 6 | |
(about 3 hours later) | |
A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck near the coast of Albania on Tuesday, killing at least six people and injuring 300. It was one of the strongest tremors to hit Albania in decades, and came just two months after the country was struck by another quake. | |
Tuesday’s earthquake was recorded at 3:54 a.m. about 19 miles west of Tirana, the capital, which is home to nearly 900,000 people. Residents there reported that they had felt the tremors. | |
President Ilir Meta called the situation “dramatic” as he visited Thumane, the town closest to the epicenter, where at least two people died. | |
“We hope to overcome it with the least loss,” he wrote in a tweet that included pictures of him talking with locals and an army officer. | |
The Defense Ministry told The Associated Press that a man had died in the town of Kurbin after jumping from his home to escape the shaking, and that another person had died when a building collapsed in coastal city of Durres. | |
Video posted to social media in the aftermath showed damaged buildings. | |
In a statement, Mr. Meta vowed that rescuers would “save every human life under the rubble of buildings and to help the injured.” It was unclear how many people were trapped. | |
The quake struck two months after a 5.6-magnitude quake injured dozens of people and damaged hundreds of homes in the same area. Officials said that that quake, on Sept. 21, was the strongest to strike the country in 30 years, according to Reuters. |