An earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale struck southern Greece today, killing one person, injuring another 15 people and damaging homes and a military base, authorities said.
"We have at least one person dead," a police official said. "So far we have at least 15 injured."
Some of those injured had jumped from balconies in panic when the quake struck at 12.30pm, 54 km (33 miles) south of the western city of Patras, sending residents out into the streets.
"It was terrible. We had never lived through something like this before. It was very long and we felt that the town was being flattened," the mayor of Pyrgos, Makis Paraskevopoulos, told state TV.
There were unconfirmed reports of at least one person being trapped in rubble, police said.
"Five old buildings have collapsed in the area so far, phone lines are down and people are still out in the streets, too scared to go back," a police official told Reuters.
The national Athens-Patras highway was cut after a landslide caused by the quake blocked off the country's main southern road artery and authorities were working to clear it.
The main control tower of the Greek air force military base in the town of Andravida near the quake's epicentre was damaged and evacuated, police said.
"We will definitely have more aftershocks, which is a natural phenomenon, but people should not panic and they should listen to local authorities," Athens Geodynamical Institute director Gerassimos Papadopoulos told reporters.
The tremors were felt in the capital, where 143 people were killed in 1999 by an earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale. Greece is often rattled by earthquakes, most causing no serious damage.
Earlier this year, in January, an earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale struck Greece, where the epicentre was again in the Peloponnese peninsula.