5.4 magnitude earthquake shakes southeastern France, wounded four

The earth trembled in the south-east of France. Four people were wounded, one of them seriously, in a strong earthquake on Monday November 11, shortly before noon near Montélimar (Drôme), and felt from Lyon to Montpellier without causing major damage.

An earthquake of magnitude 5.4 on the Richter scale occurred in Ardèche, "26km southeast of Privas", possibly near the Teil, at 11:52, said in a statement the Central Bureau seismologique English (BCSF) of Strasbourg.

pic.twitter.com/zZWOVRNgQP

"People were very scared"

It was felt mainly in the Drôme and Ardèche, especially in the vicinity of Montélimar where a person was seriously injured in the fall of a scaffolding, according to the prefecture of the Drôme.

Three other people were slightly injured in Ardeche "following a panic attack," said on Twitter the prefect of this department who asked residents of Teil (Ardeche) to "stay for the moment outside the homes" .

The mayor of this city, bordering Montelimar, has opened three gyms for its citizens, added the prefect. "It lasted five seconds, everything shook around me, the furniture, the walls, as if a plane had crashed to 800 meters or a big explosion", testified to AFP Kevin Cuer, resident in the 4th floor of a Montélimar building.

According to him "everyone went out in the street after the shock, people were very scared, we said 'provided that it stops quickly'". "No major damage has been recorded at this stage in the department", nor on all the nuclear facilities of Tricastin, confirmed in a statement the prefecture of Drôme.

The services of the SDIS "currently perform about fifteen interventions to check the condition of buildings and chimneys reported to have been slightly damaged," she also said.

"Cotton legs"

"The earth trembled in Montelimar, so no one was injured," tweeted the city's mayor, Franck Reynier. "There would be no damage, no firefighting intervention was needed," he added, calling on the population not to saturate emergency call services. "We will keep you informed as and when," he concluded.

"I felt my legs shaking, I felt like I was going to fall, my legs were cotton, I sat down and I understood that there had been an earthquake", testified from AFP Nathalie Lefèvre, resident of Vallon Pont d'Arc, in the Ardèche.

"I was leaning against the oven of my mother's bakery when I felt it tremble, a client's dresser moved and all her dishes were broken," said Victoria Brielle, a Privas resident.

Emergency calls

The jolt, of rare intensity in the region, was also felt until Saint-Étienne, Lyon, and even in the south of France, said witnesses to AFP. "I was lying in front of my computer on my bed when I felt a loud noise behind the partition of the apartment, the furniture moved, my wife in the room next door felt like walking on a gateway, "told AFP Bertrand Maigre, living on the 5th floor of a building in the 6th arrondissement of Lyon.

"The dog barked before the tremor", also testified to the AFP Didier Lévy, who lives in a castle of the fifteenth century in Lamotte-du-Rhône (Vaucluse). "This is the first time I've seen this, I felt the shock when our walls are one meter thick," he added. Several minutes after the jolt, "the chandeliers were still moving," he assured.

After the tremor, firefighters in Vaucluse received "about fifty calls mainly from municipalities located in the north of the department, including Bollene and Valréas," said a spokesman to AFP.

With AFP