In Albania, a search for survivors
Dozens killed, thousands left homeless following 6.4-magnitude quake
TIRANA, ALBANIA— With whole sections of towns reduced to rubble and rescue workers desperately racing to find survivors the day after a deadly earthquake rocked this small Balkan nation, Albanians were still trying Wednesday to grasp the scale of the devastation.
At least 31 people were reported killed, hundreds were injured and thousands were left homeless by the 6.4-magnitude quake that struck before dawn Tuesday. In small villages not yet reached by emergency crews, residents issued desperate pleas for water and other supplies.
Even as aftershocks continued to rattle already-damaged buildings and survivors’ nerves, hundreds of people — police officers, soldiers, firefighters, teams from neighbouring countries and local residents — used whatever they could to reach people still trapped under debris.
“We have lost human lives,” Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said during a visit to a hospital caring for victims in Tirana, the capital city. “We have also saved a lot of lives.”
Local television showed scenes of dramatic rescues overnight and throughout the day, as well as images of those killed.
The coastal city of Durres and the town of Thumane were among the hardest hit by the quake, the strongest to strike Albania in decades. Buildings collapsed or broke apart, trapping people inside, and others were damaged badly enough that people were wary of staying in them. The government sought Wednesday to reassure the victims whose homes were destroyed or damaged to the point of being unsafe that it will find them accommodation. All of those people would have temporary shelter soon and new homes next year, the prime minister said. Many Albanians woke up Wednesday in tents, cars and a soccer stadium, but authorities said anyone whose home was uninhabitable would soon be placed in a nearby hotel.
“Thousands of families spent last night out under the sky, and we can’t let them pass the winter in tents,” Rama said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “We’re doing everything we can to make sure that all of them spend Christmas with a roof.”
The promises were ambitious for a country that is one of the poorest in Europe and is struggling just to fathom the extent of the destruction. Rama renewed calls to various countries, including members of the European Union and countries in the Middle East, to provide assistance.
“It’s too big of a disaster and a challenge to deal with for our little country and our limited resources,” he said.
Destructive earthquakes are fairly common in the Balkan region, near where two of Earth’s major tectonic plates, the Eurasian and African, as well as the smaller Aegean and Anatolian plates, collide.
That instability was underscored by a 5.4-magnitude quake that struck Bosnia and Herzegovina just hours after the tremor in Albania, and a 6.0-magnitude quake that rattled the Greek island of Crete on Wednesday. Later Wednesday, a 5.6-magnitude aftershock in Albania sent people running out of their homes and offices, waiting and hoping that the worst had passed.
The quake Tuesday, centred near Durres, on the Adriatic coast, came just two months after a temblor in the same area injured dozens and damaged hundreds of homes.
“The first earthquake was terrible, but now we realize how small this was compared to this one,” Rama said.
In Durres, the country’s second-largest city, residents whose homes were destroyed or damaged spent Tuesday night outside, covered in blankets and sitting on mattresses, as workers from the Red Cross distributed food.