Empty roads and no transport system causes travel chaos in Slovenia and Austria after no fewer than 13 small earthquakes have rocked the region
Alpine country goes back into lockdown, suspending tourism as the holiday season starts
A large part of Slovenia and Austria has been on lockdown on Friday as the holiday season gets underway amid fears of an earthquake that have left many tourists in the Alpine country without transport.
The news agency Reuters said 852,000 tourists had been affected by the travel ban, prompting the region’s travel providers to resume services at low-cost airlines early on Friday morning.
A spokesman for Slovenia’s crisis centre told Reuters hotels and restaurants were working on holiday staff and were preparing for “the normal business day” after the clampdown on public transport and operations in some towns.
Slovenia last experienced a major earthquake in 1969, when 82 people were killed and thousands injured.
The quake zone is south-west of the capital, Ljubljana, and the quake wave of 4cm was expected to hit the nearest coastal area, Vitkovice, about a third of a mile away. The most recent earthquake in the area was in July 2010, a magnitude 2.2, local emergency services said.
“We are monitoring all the seismic signals and are ready for measures to be taken if necessary,” said spokesman Igor Tomish, adding that the quake had caused damage to crops.
Slovenia has 600,000 inhabitants and is the poorest European Union country, with an unemployment rate of 8.3%.
Following Friday’s quakes, the mayor of the coastal region of Vrede Balta said a considerable amount of damage had been caused to crops and that an emergency plan would be drawn up to deal with any similar event in the future.
The earthquakes struck in the Valencian peninsula, 700km (435 miles) south-west of Innsbruck, the Austrian capital. The Jura mountains are a popular area of European travel but it remains unclear whether local residents are facing damage to the landscape.