Earthquake in 1999

Today is 7th September, and looking back over the years, it has been an eventful day in history. Too many events of importance have taken place on this day, but I will just talk about one of them. In 1999, a major earthquake of magnitude 6.0 occurred in Athens, Greece. The 1999 quake was the most devastating and costly natural disaster to hit the country in nearly 20 years. More than 100 buildings (including three major factories) across the area collapsed trapping scores of victims under their rubble while dozens more were severely damaged. Overall, 143 people lost their lives and more than 2,000 were treated for injuries in what eventually became Greece's deadliest natural disaster in almost half a century. This event took Greek seismologists by surprise as it came from a previously unknown fault, originating in an area that was for a long time considered of a particularly low seismic activity zone.