There were widespread fears in Athens last night that the latest earthquake in Turkey could cause another deadly tremor in the Greek capital. A quake registering 5.9 on the Richter scale last week left 123 people dead and almost 100,000 people remain homeless.
Searchers have pulled six more bodies from the rubble under the Ricomex insulation factory in Menidi, the worst-hit area just north of Athens, where 27 people died, according to provisional figures. Last week, rescue workers succeeded in digging out nine people alive from under the wreckage at the factory.
Despite trying to reassure the public, Greek scientists said they could not rule out the possibility that the earthquakes in Greece and Turkey are inter-connected.
Greek officials say victims are likely to remain in tents until November, when they hope other accommodation can be found in Athens, Europe's most densely populated city.
Reuters reports from Istanbul and Tehran:
For the second time in a month, rescuers in the Turkish seaside town of Golcuk were yesterday searching for survivors in the wreckage of homes devastated by an earthquake.
At least four people were thought to be still trapped in buildings in the town, worst hit by the August 17th quake and jolted again by a powerful aftershock on Monday.
Some 4,600 people were killed in Golcuk in August out of a population of around 65,000. At least 15,500 died across the whole of the north-west of Turkey.
In Monday's aftershock at least six people were killed. One woman died of a heart attack trying to escape to the safety of open ground. Hundreds more were injured leaping from windows or off balconies.
A moderately strong earthquake hit central Iran yesterday causing damage and panic but no casualties, Tehran radio reported.
"Fortunately this earthquake. . . did not cause casualties but it cracked the walls of buildings, shattered window panes and provoked fear and panic among residents," the report said.
The quake, measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale, hit the town of Shalamzar, 400 km south-west of Tehran, and nearby cities at 4.02 a.m. (12.32 a.m. Irish time). Iran's worst earthquake, recorded at 7.3 on the Richter scale, killed 35,000 people in 1990.