International Residents shun city as aftershocks shake Salonika

Press, 23 June 1978, Page 6

International Residents shun city as aftershocks shake Salonika

NZPA-Reuter Salonika I housands of Salonikans have spent the night in the open air as aftershocks of Tuesday’s earthquake continue to rumble through the city.

Rescue teams have recovered six more bodies from the ruins of an eight-storev building which collapsed in an earthquake on Tuesdav. bringing the death toll to 2f>' The police said yesterday that the final toll might eventually reach 40 as more bodies were recovered from the rubble. The building which collapsed had housed about 50 families and so far 24 people[ are missing, the spokesman said. Early yesterday troons 1 were guarding damaged ■ shops to prevent looting. 1 and the streets were littered with masonrv 'rom damaged buildings. The Government declared | a state of emergency after' the earthquake throughout ■ northern Greece, and called' in Army troops to keep i order. Though most of Mace-! donia — the early realm off Alexander the Great — was! rocked by the tremor at, 11.03 p.m. on Tuesday, the

-Iworst damage was in the i industrial centre of Salonika, 50km from the epicentre. ! Because of a heat wave , [many people were in the . streets trying to keep cool . and so escaped death. Parks and fields near the , jcity resembled a huge camp site, as thousands slept on ' makeshift beds. The GovernI ment sent 700 large tents to b I the city for use as emergen'|cy shelters. Patients from two city hospitals have been evacuated. One of the hospitals out its patients into the ’' grounds of the building and The other sent them to the I j nearby town of Kilkis. Thousands of residents fled the city by car on Wednesday, fearing further I tremors. All banks, shops, I i and civil service buildings (were closed. I None of the large indusi trial concerns outside Salo- j nika, including an Esso Oil! refinery and a Goodyear ■tyre plant, were damaged in; | the tremors. An official announcement'

e'said aftershocks would con i. ■ tinue to shake the city bu would gradually becomt e weaker. el It advised residents not tc 1: return to their dainagec i homes. e ; A team of seismologist; pjsaid on Wednesday the ■> earthquake was related to s - tremor which hit the same 3 area on May 24. Ever since, - the city had been hit by repeated aftershocks. ; Salonika was founded by - Cassander. the brother-in-s law of Alexander the Great • in 315 B.C. i It was the birthplace of e Kemal Ataturk, the foundei ;of modem Turkey. St Paul s preached there and wrote il two epistles to early Chrisrltians which became two ,'books of the New Testaiiment: “The Letters to the IThessalonians.” The city was captured by The Persians and by the ' Turks, Salonika surrendered 1 to the Greeks in 1912, ending 482 years of Turkish ! rule.