At least two people were killed and over 100 injured when a powerful earthquake struck Turkey's Aegean coast and a few Greek islands located nearby, including Kos, Rhodes and Dodecanese Islands, on Friday.
The epicentre of the quake was located around 10.3 km south of the Turkish resort of Bodrum and 16.2 kilometres east of the island of Kos in Greece, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The quake was at a depth of 10 km.
Fire Service rescue chief Stephanos Kolokouris told state television that two people died in Kos after the ceiling of a building collapsed onto a bar in the Old Town of the island's main port. They were tourists from Turkey and Sweden.
Rescue operations are still underway. Workers have said that the damage was limited to the island's main town. Kolokouris told the Associated Press: "We are operating in the main town, and will remain there. We conducted a very extensive search of other areas where people are living and fortunately there was no serious problem."
Kos Mayor Giorgos Kyritsis said that the main town suffered damages but the rest of the island seemed to have no problems. "The buildings affected were mostly old and were built before the earthquake building codes were introduced," Kyritsis said.
Turkish television said that the quake triggered high waves off Gumbet near Bodrum thereby flooding the road and leaving parked cars stranded.
Thousands of tourists were stranded and spent the night sleeping outside their hotel after a powerful earthquake struck the Greek island of Kos. The spent the night outdoors to keep themselves safe from the several aftershocks that came following the deadly quake.
"The bed shook a lot. Some bottles fell and broke in the kitchen and the patio... I screamed I was very scared because I was alone," Turkish pensioner Dilber Arikan, who has a summer house in the area, told AFP.
Forty-seven-year-old Erdinc Kalece and his 23-year-old son Baris were in Turgutreis district outside Bodrum when the quake struck. "My father and mother were sleeping, I was driving. It was very bad. The road was trembling and I heard a big tremor. I slowed down, waited. I was not scared but anxious," Baris told the news agency.
Turkey and Greece have regularly been hit by earthquakes over the last few years as they are located on significant fault lines.
