Cracked buildings, damaged churches and displaced residents were assessed on Saturday in western France, where a “very strong” earthquake hit the coastal area on Friday, causing no casualties but being felt from Rennes to Bordeaux. AFP reports.

According to the French Central Seismological Bureau (BCSF), two aftershocks (magnitudes 5 and 3.7) were registered after the 5.3 to 5.8 earthquake on Saturday morning, raising fears among residents of the affected area. Some of them cannot return to their broken homes.

According to the fire service, in La Laine, in the department of Charente-Maritime, the bell tower of the church has significant cracks and some houses have become “unfit for habitation”. They inspect the houses and buildings one by one in this village of 500 residents, classifying them from green to black according to their condition.

“I don’t know if I’m allowed to stay in the house,” Guillaume Vacrenier, a resident of La Lain, told AFP. “Everything was damaged: two facades are cracked, and I don’t mean cracks in the plaster. Stones were falling, I put my fingers in some cracks, all my rooms have impact marks, there are cracks between the partitions,” said the local. “My first job today is to put the tiles back because there’s a storm in the forecast tonight (Saturday). Yesterday (Friday) night my neighbors packed up and left,” he added.

Similar damage was also seen in nearby villages such as Saint-Hilaire-la-Pauilleux (Desèvres department), where a security perimeter was set up around the church and 38 people had to be moved to shelters in the area, according to the prefecture. Des Sèvres Two people were slightly injured in this department, and the earthquake “also caused numerous material damages, including falling rocks, cracks and partial roof collapse”, especially in Niorta. The assessment of the buildings continued on Saturday by the forces of specialized firefighters, who were to receive reinforcements from neighboring units. The prefecture has asked residents to move away from buildings that appear “fragile.”

In the southern Vendée region, firefighters carried out about ten operations on Saturday to identify “minor damage”, such as damage to chimneys, after the tremors of the earthquake on Friday.

“Given the intensity of the earthquake (…), an accelerated disaster assessment procedure will be launched to take into account possible structural damage,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanen said on Twitter.

The earthquake, which occurred at 18:38 local time, with its epicenter in the commune of Cram-Chaban (Charente-Maritime), halfway between La Rochelle and Neures, is the largest in this part of western France. It was a surface earthquake, up to 10 kilometers deep. (Source: News.ro / Photo: Dreamstime.com)