The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Athens

A strong earthquake measuring 6.5 on the open-ended Richter scale struck the Peloponnese region of Greece on Sunday, killing at least two people and injuring more than 30, authorities said.

The quake was felt throughout the peninsula and as far away as Athens, causing panic in villages and towns in the west and the north of the Peloponnese, when it struck around 3:25 pm (1325 GMT), NET public television reported.

The National Observatory of Athens located the quake 205 kilometres (130 miles) west of the capital near the town of Andravida. Observatory research chief Gerassimos Papadopoulos said the epicentre was about 10 kilometres (six miles) underground.

A man in his sixties was killed in the village of Kato Achaia when the roof of his house collapsed, firefighters said.

And an 80-year-old woman died of a heart attack in the same village in the northwest of the Peloponnese, police said.

Thirty-seven people were injured, suffering mostly from fractures according to health service officials and rescuers.

Dozens of houses were damaged, and 50 collapsed near the epicentre.

George Stavrakakis of the Athens Observatory's Geodynamic Institute said the quake was "the biggest recorded in the region" in a long time.

"The quake was terrible. We have not had such a big one even though we're used to them," said the mayor of the town of Pyrgos, George Paraskevopoulos. "It lasted for quite a while and everybody ran from their homes."

Pyrgos' Agios Nicolaos church suffered serious damage and several buildings in the town centre showed cracks after the quake, he added.