Earthquake, aftershocks rattle central Albania

Apartment buildings and houses damaged beyond repair, but no injuries reported.
TIRANA, May 20 – An earthquake with a magnitude 5.2 on the Richter scale rattled central Albania Monday, causing damage to buildings and panic is several cities and towns, but no injuries were reported, authorities said. Several smaller aftershocks followed into Tuesday.
Albania’s Seismological Department said the quake, which occurred at 2:59 a.m, Monday, had its epicenter 6 kilometers southeast of Belsh commune, 44 kilometers south of the capital, Tirana.
Six other relatively strong tremors shook the area afterward and also another Tuesday morning with a preliminary magnitude of 4.5.
Ervin Kasaj of the Seismological Department said some houses and apartment blocks in the towns of Cerrik and Peqin, close to the epicenter, have cracks but nobody was reported hurt.
Albania lies in a seismically active area.
There were some tens of houses in the areas surrounding Cerrik and also further west to Lushnja were damaged. Scores of families in the area and elsewhere passed Monday night out of their apartment blocks fearing they could collapse.
Tens of families had remained without shelter as police and authorities in the above-mentioned towns ordered evacuation of the residents of three flats in Cerrik and other homes elsewhere.
Some apartments that were damaged Monday were condemned. Local and central authorities are coordinating work to calculate the damage and also the way to shelter the affected families.