An earthquake in Greece has left two dead, more than one hundred injured.
At least two people were killed and more than one hundred injured after a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck the Greek Islands and Turkey`s Aegean Coast in the early hours of Friday morning.
The Greek island of Kos, a popular tourist destination, emerges to have been the worst hit.
Rescue authorities said that two men—a Turk and a Swede—died when a popular Kos bar, the White Corner Club, collapsed after the quake struck at about 1.30 am. The dead holidaymakers have not yet been named.
Greek officials said at least five other people were gravely injured as tourists and local residents scrambled out of buildings, with some even leaping from balconies.
Those who suffered serious injuries were transported by helicopter to a hospital on the island of Crete.
Two died and more than one hundred were injured on the island of Kos when an earthquake shook Greece and Turkey https://t.co/ZWySk9VhHA pic.twitter.com/3FSTI8Wuny
“There was banging. There was wiggling. The light was swinging, banging on the ceiling, crockery falling out of the cupboards, and pans were making noise,” Christopher Hackland, a Scottish diving instructor, told the Associated Press.
“There was a lot of screaming and blubbering and hysterics coming from the hotel. It felt like being at a theme park with one of the illusions, an optical illusion where you feel like you`re upside down.”
Piles of rubble, flooded streets on the island of Kos in Greece, where an earthquake has killed two people. https://t.co/IRBavYiOIJ pic.twitter.com/MUK2rjhH50
Ems of thousands of tourists spent the night outdoors on Kos, with many sleeping on sunbeds along beaches as a quake-related sea erect subsided.
The quake bruised churches, an old mosque and the port`s 14th-century castle, along with old buildings in the town.
Car crushed under rubble near the port of the Greek island of Kos following a 6.Five magnitude earthquake on July 21, 2017. Picture via Getty.
In nearby Turkey, the quake caused cracks in walls of some buildings in the resort town of Bodrum, flooding the lower floors of sea-front hotels and restaurants and sending moored boats crashing toward the shore.
Boat captain Metin Kestaneci, 40, told the private Dogan news agency that he was asleep on his vessel when the quake hit.
"There was very first a noise and then a roar. Before I could ask ‘what’s happening?’ my boat was dragged toward the shore. We found ourselves on the shore," Kestaneci said. "I’ve never experienced such a thing."
Turkish authorities said some seventy people were treated in hospitals for minor injuries, mostly sustained during panicked flights from their homes.
The ground wiggles in a cafe in #Bodrum, Turkey, as an earthquake hits. At least two people have been killed in #Kos, Greece pic.twitter.com/R8V5HYJi9x
The quake was centred ten km south of Bodrum and sixteen km east-northeast of Kos, according to the US Geological Survey, which noted the quake had a depth of ten kms.
According to Turkish disaster officials, more than twenty aftershocks have been recorded.
Authorities warned people to stay away from beaches, with the Paris-based European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) posting evidence of a petite tsunami.
"Don’t go on beaches, don’t go in bruised buildings, go after instructions by national authorities," the centre tweeted.