2ND Strong quake rocks Iberian Peninsula - no injuries

dpa German Press Agency Published: Monday February 12, 2007

Madrid/Lisbon- An earthquake registering 6.1 points on the
Richter scale Monday rocked the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco, but no
injuries or significant damage were reported.
The quake had its epicentre in the Atlantic about 160 kilometres
offshore from the southern Portuguese coastal town Cabo de Sao
Vicente.

If the epicentre had been on land, the tremor could have caused a
disaster comparable to a 2004 earthquake which killed more than 600
people in Morocco, experts said.

The earthquake was felt on practically the entire Iberian
Peninsula. Initial Spanish measurements put its strength at 6.3
points, while Portuguese officials said it registered 5.8 points.

The quake prompted hundreds of people to run from their offices or
homes in Seville and Huelva in the southern Spanish region of
Andalusia, where it was the strongest earthquake in more than a
decade.

Andalusian emergency services received hundreds of calls reporting
or requesting information about the tremor, but none of the callers
was aware of injuries or damage.

The quake was felt as far as Lisbon and Madrid, where chairs moved
in high office towers. It was also observed in Moroccan localities
including Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakesh, according to the national
news agency MAP.

Portuguese and Moroccan reports said the earthquake caused no
injuries or damage.

Southern Spain frequently has small earthquakes, but such a
powerful tremor was unusual, according to the National Geographic
Institute.

The quake was, however, deemed too weak to produce a tsunami.

An earthquake of the same magnitude killed more than 5,000 people
on Java last May.

© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency