July 5, 1902 Earthquake: Thessaloniki, Greece

July 5, 1902, 14:32 UTC, 40.75 N, 23.25 E, magnitude 6.5 MS, intensity IX. (reference #1004)

Reference #4408:

July 5, 1902, 14:56:30 UTC, 40.82 N, 23.04 E, magnitude 6.5 Mw, intensity IX.

Foreshocks started three months before. The same day with the mainshock two shocks occurred one in the moming and the other at noon and they warn, somehow, the inhabitants and for this reason there were only 5 victims. This was also due to the fact that the villagers were at their evening works (in the fields) and thus the number of deaths was minimized. The after-shocks lasted till the winter. In Assiros, the damage in the houses, which were made of brick were very large. From the 218 house~, 100 collapsed and the rest became uninhabitable. This is due to the bad construction and to the heavy roofs which collapsed by the violent shock. In the ground, fissures of 4-8m long appeared and in one case the fissure was 100m long and 10 cm wide. In the dried up tributary of the· village dirty water carne out and then was dried up. Mud water appeared in other parts of the shaken area. In the village Arkali (Turkish lands 2 km from Lagada), 10 houses and the Bulgarian church collapsed. However, the house of the Turk landowner, which was better built, suffered very little damage. In these lands, water appeared. In Lagada 40 chimneys collapsed and houses were fissured, while in the next day after the earthquake in the central room of the baths, bores of 0.6m width and 8.5m depth with new hot water appeared. The village Aghios Vasilios suffered serious damage with the collapses of houses and of one church. The villages Laina, Kavalari and Chortiates were less damaged. In Thessaloniki, the shock lasted about 20 sec and the panic put the inhabitant to rout in many cases. The inhabitants stayed ovemight in the open air. The schools and the shops were closed for some days. An extremely large number of houses were fissured. The storehouses and the facilities in the harbour were damaged. However, serious damage, almost terrible, few houses suffered due to their height, to their bad construction and to ground properties. Such are the Serbian school, the Italian hospital, the Turkish bank and the houses in the series of harbour. The earthquake was preceded by underground noise. The building of the railway station of Doiran suffered considerable damage, while the lake of Doiran was clearly vibrated during the earthquake. In Gevgeli, the building of the railway station was also fissured. In Drama, the earthquake was lightly felt. In general, the earthquake was stronger felt in the NW-SE direction. The shock was felt up to Sofia north and up to Athens south (Hoemes, 1902; Critikos, 1932a). Hoemes (1902) cites a map of distribution of damage.