ATHENS, June 8 (Xinhua) -- A strong earthquake with a preliminarymagnitude of 6.5 on the Richter scale struck southwestern" title="a.西南的">southwestern Greece Sunday, local media reported.

The quake struck at 15:25 local time (1225 GMT), leaving one person dead and nearly a dozen injured, said the Athens News Agency.

Some witnesses said the quake lasted 20 to 25 seconds, which was felt in Athens and throughout southern and central Greece, media reports said.

The earthquake was shallow, roughly 10 kilometers in depth, with an epicenter near the town of Andravida -- 30 kilometers southwest of the western port city of Patras, head of Greece's Earthquake Risk Assessment Committee, Gerasimos Papadopoulos, told reporters and television crews outside the Athens Observatory.

There have been aftershocks and more are expected to follow because the epicenter was close to the ground surface, Papadopoulos said.

A strong aftershock with a magnitude of 4.7 on the Richter scale was felt after half an hour.

Local authorities said there were widespread reports of collapsed and severely damaged houses in the quake that was felt as far away as southern Italy.

Greece is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. In 1999, a 5.9-magnitude quake near Athens killed 143 people and left thousands homeless. (chinaview 2008-06-09 00:31:28)
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