No damage to schools, state departments

Police officers gather outside a building in Sabah Al-Salem which was evacuated due to a crack following Sunday’s tremors

KUWAIT: Some occupants of an apartment building in Sabah Al-Salem district have been evacuated due to a crack, said Kuwait Fire Services Directorate (KFSD) in a statement yesterday. The residents were evacuated at dawn yesterday due to the crack in one side of the building, the KFSD said, indicating that only occupants of the part where the crack was located had to leave their houses. The crack might have been caused by Sunday nights tremors, resulting from the 7.5 earthquake that jolted Iraqi-Iranian border areas, KFSD said. The regional quake caused 4-5 degree tremors in Kuwait.

Several ministries and state agencies have assured that Sunday's quake did not cause any damage to schools or other state installations. No damage to schools were reported after the earthquake that rocked the country Sunday evening, Undersecretary of the Education Ministry Haitham Al-Athari said., adding that yesterday was a normal school day.

Meanwhile, Spokesman of Ministry of Public Works Assistant Engineer Abdulmohsen Al-Enezi said that the ministry's facilities and projects were not affected by the quake. Furthermore, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Electricity and Water Engineer Mohammad Bushehri announced that the quake caused no harm to the ministry's installations. Bushehri noted that all facilities are working normally. The ministry is cooperating with civil defense department and other relevant bodies to take all precautionary measures for dealing with any emergency, he said.

In the meantime, the Interior Ministry said that a comprehensive security survey in addition to the reports from the police patrols across the state have detected no damage or security and traffic repercussions due to the quake. It added that the Civil Defense Department has taken all precautionary measures in collaborations with relevant state agencies to guarantee the state security and people safety.

KFSD had stated that the earthquake that was felt by most of people in Kuwait on Sunday did not cause any harm to public or private properties. The Kuwait National Seismic Network (KNSN) stressed that the earthquake that struck Iraq-Iran borders does not pose any threat on Kuwait but people felt it due to its strength and proximity.

Dr Abdullah Al-Enezi said in a statement that KNSN recorded at 21:18 local time an earthquake measuring 7.2 degrees on Richter scale on the Iraq-Iran borders, with the epicenter 20 kms beneath surface, and was 600 kms away from Kuwait City. KNSN recorded some aftershocks, the highest was 4.6 degrees, he said. Earlier, the KNSN said a tremor measuring between four and five degrees on Richter scale hit the country, caused by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Iraq-Iran borders. - KUNA