![1999 Athens earthquake relief by IDF (FB808729829170744)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/1999_Athens_earthquake_relief_by_IDF_%28FB808729829170744%29.jpg)
The 1999 Athens earthquake occurred on September 7 at near
Mount Parnitha
Mount Parnitha ( ell, Πάρνηθα, , Katharevousa and grc, Πάρνης ''Parnis''/''Parnes''; sometimes Parnetha) is a densely forested mountain range north of Athens, the highest on the peninsula of Attica, with an elevation of 1,413 m, and ...
in Greece with a moment magnitude of 6.0 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (''Violent''). The proximity to the Athens metropolitan area resulted in widespread structural damage, mainly to the nearby suburbs of
Ano Liossia,
Acharnes
Acharnes ( el, Αχαρνές, , before 1915: Μενίδι Menidi, ) is a northwestern suburb of Athens, Attica, Greece. With 106,943 inhabitants (2011 census), it is the most populous municipality in East Attica. It is part of the Athens Urban ar ...
,
Fyli
Fyli ( el, Φυλή, , meaning "tribe") is a town and a municipality in the northwestern part of Attica, Greece. It lies in the northeastern corner of the West Attica regional unit, and is a suburb of Athens. The seat of the municipality is the to ...
,
Thrakomakedones
Thrakomakedones (Greek: Θρακομακεδόνες from Thrace and Macedonia), is a town in the regional unit East Attica, in Attica region, Greece. It is a northern suburb of Athens. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the muni ...
,
Kifissia,
Metamorfosi
Metamorfosi ( el, Μεταμόρφωση, Metamórfosi, transfiguration; before 1957: Koukouvaounes ( el, link=no, Κουκουβάουνες, Koukouváounes) is a suburb in the northern part of the Athens agglomeration, Greece, and a municipalit ...
,
Kamatero
Kamatero ( el, Καματερó ; officially ΚαματερόνNational Statistic Service of Greece surveys. Last accessed December 4, 2009. (in Greek) ) is a suburb northwest of Athens city center, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform ...
and
Nea Philadelphia
Nea Filadelfeia ( el, Νέα Φιλαδέλφεια, meaning ''New Philadelphia'') is a suburb of Athens, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Filadelfeia-Chalkidona, of which it is the seat and a municip ...
. More than 100 buildings (including three major factories) across those areas collapsed trapping scores of victims under their rubble while dozens more were severely damaged. With damage estimated at $3–4.2 billion, 143 people were killed, and up to 1,600 were treated for injuries in Greece's deadliest natural disaster in almost half a century.
Tectonic setting
Greece is a seismically active country, located in a complex zone of interaction of the
African
African or Africans may refer to:
* Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa:
** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa
*** Ethn ...
,
Eurasian
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Ja ...
,
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi (Greek language, Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish language, Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It ...
, and Anatolian plates.
Southern Greece
Southern Greece ( el, Νότια Ελλάδα) is a loosely defined geographical term, usually encompassing the Peloponnese peninsula and varying parts of Continental Greece (Attica is usually included), as well as the islands of the Cyclades, t ...
itself is located on the Aegean Sea Plate. The Anatolian Plate is moving southwest into the Aegean Sea Plate at a rate of 3 cm per year relative to the Eurasian Plate. Meanwhile, the African Plate subduction beneath the Aegean Sea Plate at a rate of 4 cm per year along the
Hellenic Subduction Zone
The Hellenic subduction zone (HSZ) is the convergent boundary between the African Plate and the Aegean Sea Plate, where oceanic crust of the African is being subducted north–northeastwards beneath the Aegean. The southernmost and shallowest par ...
.
Damage
The 1999 quake was the most devastating and costly
natural disaster
A natural disaster is "the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community". A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property, and typically leaves some econ ...
to hit the country in nearly 20 years. The
last major earthquake to hit Athens took place on February 24, 1981, near the Alkyonides Islands of the
Corinthian Gulf
The Gulf of Corinth or the Corinthian Gulf ( el, Κορινθιακός Kόλπος, ''Korinthiakόs Kόlpos'', ) is a deep inlet of the Ionian Sea, separating the Peloponnese from western mainland Greece. It is bounded in the east by the Isth ...
, some 87 km to the west of the Greek capital. Registering a moment magnitude of 6.7, the 1981 earthquake had resulted in the deaths of 20 people and considerable and widespread
structural damage
''Structural Damage'' is the sixth studio album by the guitarist Steve Morse, released on March 14, 1995, by High Street Records.
Track listing
Personnel
*Steve Morse – guitar, mixing, producer
*Van Romaine – drums, percussion
*Dave LaRue ...
in the city of
Corinth
Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part o ...
, nearby towns and sections of Athens' western suburbs.
Apart from the proximity of the epicenter to the Athens Metropolitan Area, this quake also featured a very shallow
hypocenter
In seismology, a hypocenter or hypocentre () is the point of origin of an earthquake or a subsurface nuclear explosion. A synonym is the focus of an earthquake.
Earthquakes
An earthquake's hypocenter is the position where the strain energy s ...
combined with unusually high
ground accelerations. Unexpectedly heavy damage also affected the town of Adames. The
Acropolis of Athens
The Acropolis of Athens is an ancient citadel located on a rocky outcrop above the city of Athens and contains the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historical significance, the most famous being the Parthenon. Th ...
and the rest of the city's famous ancient monuments escaped the disaster either totally unharmed or suffering only minor damage. A landslide as well as several fissures were reported along the road leading to the peak of
Mount Parnitha
Mount Parnitha ( ell, Πάρνηθα, , Katharevousa and grc, Πάρνης ''Parnis''/''Parnes''; sometimes Parnetha) is a densely forested mountain range north of Athens, the highest on the peninsula of Attica, with an elevation of 1,413 m, and ...
. Minor damage was also reported to water and waste networks close to the epicenter.
Strong motion
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 seismicity. The highest recorded
peak ground acceleration
Peak ground acceleration (PGA) is equal to the maximum ground acceleration that occurred during earthquake shaking at a location. PGA is equal to the amplitude of the largest absolute acceleration recorded on an wikt:accelerogram, accelerogram at a ...
was 0.3g, at 15 km from the epicentre, with attenuation predicting 0.6g acceleration at the centre.
Response
The tremor took place less than a month after a
Turkish disaster which was much larger in scale. This succession of earthquakes and mutual help of both countries gave rise to talks about what became known as the "
Greek-Turkish earthquake diplomacy", in hopes for a breakthrough in bilateral relations, which had been marred by decades of hostility. Turkey reciprocated the aid rendered by Greece immediately following the August 17, 1999 Turkish earthquake. A special taskforce was formed, consisting of the Undersecretariat of the Prime Ministry, the Turkish Armed Forces, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of Internal Affairs and the Greek Embassy in
Ankara
Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...
was contacted. The Turkish aid was the first to arrive in the affected areas, with the first 20-person rescue team arriving in Athens within 13 hours after the earthquake struck. The Greek consulates and the embassy in Turkey had their phone lines jammed with Turkish citizens offering
blood donation
A blood donation occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for blood transfusion, transfusions and/or made into biopharmaceutical medications by a process called Blood fractionation, fractionation (separation of whole blood com ...
s.
"Bu dostluk bitmez"
See also
*List of earthquakes in 1999
This is a list of earthquakes in 1999. Only earthquakes of magnitude 6 or above are included, unless they result in damage and/or casualties, or are notable for some other reason. All dates are listed according to UTC (Coordinated Universal Ti ...
*List of earthquakes in Greece
This list of earthquakes in Greece includes notable earthquakes that have affected Greece during recorded history. This list is currently incomplete, representing only a fraction of the possible events.
Tectonic setting
Greece is located at the c ...
* 2019 Athens earthquake
References
Sources
*Br J Surg. 2004 Dec;91(12):1633–40. Autopsy findings from 111 deaths in the 1999 Athens earthquake as a basis for auditing the emergency response. Papadopoulos IN1, Kanakaris N, Triantafillidis A, Stefanakos J, Kainourgios A, Leukidis C.
Further reading
The Athens (Greece) Earthquake of September 7, 1999: Preliminary Report on Strong Motion Data and Structural Response.
– MCEER
The Athens, Greece Earthquake of September 7, 1999
– Earthquake Engineering Research Institute
The Source Mechanism of the Athens Earthquake, September 7, 1999, Estimated from P Seismograms Recorded at Long Range
– Springer Science+Business Media
Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing.
Originally founded in 1842 in ...
* Pavlides, S., Papadopoulos, G. A., and Ganas, A., 1999. The 7th September 1999 unexpected earthquake of Athens: Preliminary results on the seismotectonic environment, 1st Conf. Advances in Natural Hazards Mitigation: Experiences from Europe and Japan, Programme-Abstracts-Reports, Athens, 3–4 November 1999, 80–85.
*
*Ganas, A., Stavrakakis, G., Lagios, E., Papadopoulos, G., & Pavlides, S.
Investigation of the seismic fault that ruptured during the 7/9/99 Athens earthquake using space techniques, RSPS 2001 Proceedings, Natural Hazards
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:1999 Athens Earthquake
Earthquakes in Greece
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
History of Athens
Athens earthquake
September 1999 events in Europe
1999 disasters in Greece