UpdateA 5.8 magnitude earthquake was felt in western France, particularly around Niort and La Rochelle.
Writing
06-16-23, 20:27
Last update:
06-16-23, 22:57
Source:
BFMTV, with AFP
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The earthquake was felt in several departments in western France around 6:38 p.m., according to the Central Seismological Bureau. With a magnitude of 5.8 at the epicenter, in the town of Cram-Chaban (Charente-Maritime), near Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon (Deux-Sèvres), halfway between La Rochelle and Niort, it is the most powerful shock recorded in mainland France since 2002, underlines BFMTV. The last earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5 dates back to 2019 in the Drôme.
“Significant material damage”
The earthquake was particularly felt in Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres, Île-et-Vilaine and Mayenne. “Numerous material damage has been reported in the south-west of the Deux-Sèvres department”, announced the prefecture of this department. “At this time, a lightly injured person was taken care of by the emergency services”, she specifies (continued below).
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“Like a double explosion”
“There was like a double explosion, we believed in a bomb”, tell Myriam and Michel, two retired inhabitants of Vendée, to BFMTV. “It was very impressive, even disturbing, I was very surprised”, says the second. “The house began to vibrate and, immediately, we felt a second one. My wife thought the boiler was exploding in the basement. Me, I was even about to leave my house in case it continued, but it calmed down after a few seconds”, he adds.
A little over a thousand households are “currently deprived of electricity”, specifies the news channel.
“My whole apartment shook”
From Bordeaux to Rennes via Limoges or La Rochelle, many residents felt the earth shake and multiplied calls for firefighters. In Tours, Léa Franke, a law student, was reading a book on her bed when she was suddenly “very scared”. “I got up and there my whole apartment shook: the mirror hanging on the wall, the microwave, the glasses, etc. It lasted a few seconds and then it stopped,” she told AFP. “I’m on the 3rd floor of a building, I thought it was going to collapse.”
Island of Re
On the Ile de Ré, Marianne Kleip was with her four children “when the sofa vibrated”. “It lasted 5 or 6 seconds, I had just enough time to understand and shout to my children ‘out!’ I said to myself: every time, it can increase and the house will fall. I thought about what happened in Turkey,” the 32-year-old social worker told AFP. “The neighbors didn’t understand, they thought it was a truck. My children no longer dared to enter the house. In the end, it’s more fear than harm”.
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