STRONG QUAKE RATTLES GEORGIA, NO CASUALTIES

Agence France Presse
September 8, 2009 Tuesday 10:01 AM GMT
TBILISI

A strong 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck northwest Georgia on Tuesday,
destroying ceilings and cracking walls in a remote mountainous area
but causing no casualties, officials said.

The US Geological Survey said the epicentre of the quake, which struck
at 2:41 am (2241 GMT Monday), was located 156 kilometres (97 miles)
northwest of the capital Tbilisi.

Officials said the epicentre was in the highland Racha region of
western Georgia, which borders Russia and the breakaway region of
South Ossetia.

"Fortunately there were no casualties," regional governor David
Gagoshidze told Imedi television. He said officials were surveying
the damage caused by the quake, which was limited to residential
buildings in the sparsely populated area.

Georgian television showed footage of homes in the region with
collapsed ceilings and cracked walls, as well as roads covered in
debris from rock slides.

An AFP correspondent felt the quake in Tbilisi, where it briefly shook
buildings and sent some residents rushing from their homes in panic.

The director of Georgia’s Seismic Monitoring Centre, Zurab
Javakhishvili, told AFP the quake was likely to be followed by minor
tremors for several weeks.

"The re-occurrence of a strong earthquake in the short term is less
probable. Minor aftershocks continue and this process may last for
more than a month with possible medium-strength tremors," he said.

The emergencies minister for South Ossetia’s rebel administration,
Anatoly Bibilov, said in a statement that the quake caused some minor
damage but did not cause any injuries in the separatist province.

A spokesman for Russia’s emergencies ministry told the Interfax
news agency that the quake had been registered in southern regions
including North Ossetia and Ingushetia, but that there were no reports
of injuries or damage.

Armenia’s National Survey for Seismic Protection said in a statement
that the earthquake was felt in the north of the country, including
in the cities of Gyumri and Vanadzor. There were also no reports of
injuries or damage in Armenia.

A major earthquake hit the Caucasus region last October, killing
at least 13 people and injuring more than a hundred, mostly in the
Russian region of Chechnya.

The last major earthquake in Georgia, measuring 5.8 in magnitude,
struck Tbilisi in April 2002, killing five people and causing serious
damage to the capital’s historic centre.

Georgia’s northern regions run along the faultlines of the Greater
Caucasus mountain range and the country has experienced numerous
earthquakes.

A 6.9 magnitude earthquake centred on the Racha region in April 1991
killed more than 200 people, left 60,000 homeless and caused damage
across thousands of square kilometres (miles).

In December 1988, some 25,000 people were killed by a 7.0 magnitude
quake in Armenia.