Holidaymakers from Fife were caught up in a massive earthquake in Turkey at the weekend, which one tourist described as ”the scariest three minutes of my life”.
There were no reported deaths but dozens of people are in hospital, with at least six people injured after jumping from their balconies when the 5.8-magnitude quake shook beach resorts on the west coast of the country.
John McGuinness, who is in Turkey with his wife Anne and seven-year-old granddaughter Aliesha, told The Courier the ground under their feet started ”going like a swing bridge”.
The family, from Oakley, were having lunch at the popular tourist destination Oludeniz when the drama unfolded on Sunday afternoon.
John said: ”We were sitting in a cafe when the place started shaking and the shop signs started falling all around us. We ran for it lke we were told.
”We stood on the pavement outside, but that was going like a swing bridge, so a guy told us to get across the road to a patch of waste ground.
”Only problem was, the road was crazy by now, with all the people and stuff from the shops falling out on to the street. It was mental. Fortunately, we got there.”
As they lay on the waste ground waiting for the tremors to stop, the family saw a panicked mother dramatically rescue her baby.
John said: ”She was trying to get into a shop to get to her sleeping kid in a back room. People were holding her back because there was stuff falling off the shelves and the shop signs were smashing off the pavement.
”She broke free and ran in with bottles raining down around her and came back out with her kid. It was very traumatic for her, and for everyone standing helpless, dodging the falling debris.”
The US Geological Survey said the earthquake struck at 3.44pm local time (12.44pm GMT) in the Mediterranean Sea between the Greek island of Rhodes and western Turkey, at a depth of nearly 25 miles.
According to Turkish officials, the Aegean resort town of Oludeniz, the Aegean port of Izmir, and the Mediterranean city of Antalya were rocked by the tremors, which left dozens of people needing hospital treatment.
There were no immediate reports that tourists were among the injured.
”Anything that was cemented down is fallen, damaged or broken, so we were lucky not to have been hurt,” said John. ”All the shops and restaurants are now closed, so that they can clean up the debris.”