Quake rattles Kosovo
2002-04-24 18:09
Belgrade - A man died and at least 100 people were injured in the eastern Kosovo town of Gnjilane when a strong earthquake measuring over five points on the open-ended Richter scale hit Kosovo on Wednesday.
The dead man was Mehmet Salibichaj, a local barber from
Gnjilane, the agency said.
The minaret of a local mosque collapsed, while a number of
buildings in the town were damaged.
The quake was felt over most of Kosovo and even further afield, including in the capitals of Serbia and Macedonia.
People ran out into the streets in several Kosovo towns when the quake hit.
Syl Tahirsylaj of the Kosovo weather service said the intensity of the quake was 5.4 points on the Richter scale, equivalent to eight on the 12-point Mercalli scale, and its epicentre was Gnjilane.
However the head of Serbia's seismological institute, Slavica
Radulovic, said the epicentre was in Kosovo, 280km south of Belgrade, "most probably between the (Kosovo)
towns of Vitina and Urosevac."
There were no immediate reports from the two towns.
The quake was felt in almost all of the UN-administered Serbian
province, as well as throughout much of Serbia, including the
capital Belgrade and also in Skopje, capital of neighbouring
Macedonia.
It caused panic in Skopje, with residents running out into the
streets. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA