Tourists flee following 6.4-magnitude quake on island in Greece

ATHENS, Greece -- A powerful earthquake Thursday turned a peak summer holiday into a frightened exodus as tourists streamed from the Ionian Sea island of Lefkada, where more than 50 people were injured and some villages were cut off by landslides.

The only bridge linking the resort island with the western mainland was jammed with cars carrying Greek and foreign tourists panicked by the 6.4-magnitude quake, which struck deep in the seabed 175 miles northwest of Athens. At least two strong aftershocks followed with preliminary magnitudes of 5.3, said the Athens Geodynamic Institute.

Nearly every Greek vacation spot is packed for the high point of the country's traditional summer break: the Aug. 15 religious festivities for the feast day of the Virgin Mary. Lefkada merchants and hotel owners watched helplessly as thousands of visitors headed away after the quake.

Extra traffic police were dispatched to handle the swarm of vehicles at the bridge leading off the island, whose economy depends heavily on tourism.

"It mostly scared tourists, who have not felt such intense things. We have lived through many earthquakes," said Ilias Georgakis, a resident of Lefkada.

Rescue officials said at least 50 people were treated for injuries that included broken limbs caused by falling rocks and roof tiles. Three others -- a Scottish couple and a Czech -- suffered serious head injuries in a landslide.

Cracks in hospital

The damage included cracks at the main hospital, forcing an evacuation of patients to the nearby port of Preveza on the mainland. Landslides left some remote villages cut off, police said.

Authorities attributed the relatively light damage to strict anti-quake construction codes imposed in recent decades in one of the world's most quake-prone zones.

But signs of the quake's power -- which was felt as far away as Athens and Italy -- were scattered throughout the island: cracked roads, fallen lampposts, a collapsed wall in an empty church and a home tilting on its foundation. Other islands and mainland towns reported isolated damage.

"There is damage to homes and businesses around the island, mostly to older buildings and it is not serious," said Greece's deputy interior minister, Lambros Papademos.

Panayiotis Fourlas, the chief of Greece's firefighting forces, said fire and rescue squads were posted throughout the island "in case we have to deal with any new problems."

The Civil Defense Agency sent about 180 tents for residents too frightened to return home.

The quake hit as the Ionian islands held memorials for the 50-year anniversary of a series of devastating quakes that killed 476 people and flattened the island of Cephalonia, just south of Lefkada.

The deadliest quake in Greece in recent years was a 5.9-magnitude that struck Athens in September 1999, killing 143 people and leaving thousands homeless.