Two earthquakes detected in Baltic Sea area
Epicentre near Kaliningrad, tremor rings church bells in Finland
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Two unusually powerful earthquakes in the Baltic Sea area frightened residents of a number of countries on Tuesday.
The tremors were felt most clearly in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. However, there were no reports of injuries or serious property damage.
The two quakes, which occurred more than two hours apart, shook houses and rattled windowpanes as far away as Sweden, Estonia, and Southern Finland. The Institute of Seismology of the University of Helsinki measured the quakes at 4.4 and 5 on the Richter scale.
Matti Tarvainen, a researcher at the Institute of Seismology, says that such powerful earthquakes are quite rare in the Baltic Sea area, adding that there is no record of a quake as powerful as the second one on Tuesday in the area in hundreds of years.
The Institute of Seismology registered the earthquakes in the Kaliningrad region at 14:04 and 16:33 Finnish time. Tarvainen says that the epicentre was at sea near the peninsula where the city of Kaliningrad is situated - about 35 kilometres west of the centre of the city.
The quakes occurred at a depth of between 10 and 15 kilometres in the crust of the earth.
In Finland the vibrations were felt in a number of areas.
In the west coast city of Pori, a seven-storey residential building shook for about 20 seconds, and the bells of a nearby church began to ring.
In Lohja furniture in a tall apartment house moved.
Seismologists got reports of shaking windowpanes in different parts of Helsinki.
The quakes were felt at a gathering of the religious missionary and development aid organisation Fida International in Kannelmäki in the northern part of Helsinki. Taking part in the meeting were visitors from the Far East, who have grown accustomed to occasional tremors, and recognised the event as an earthquake before their Finnish hosts did.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 22.9.2004 - TODAY |
 Two earthquakes detected in Baltic Sea area |
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