Emergency services in Greece were placed on alert after a 6.0-magnitude earthquake on Wednesday. Rescue teams rushed to extract people from the rubble of buildings that had collapsed in and around Elassona, a town in central Greece close to the tremor’s epicentre. As strong aftershocks shook the region, residents were advised to remain outdoors. Vassilis Karastathis, the deputy director of the Athens Geodynamic Institute, attributed the earthquake’s strength to its shallowness. “It had an estimated depth of just 8km [five miles] and that was one of the reasons it was felt so strongly,” he told the state-run TV channel ERT. The quake was also felt in the Balkan states of Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and North Macedonia. In the Greek city of Larissa, people rushed out of homes and office buildings into the streets as the quake struck at midday. Civil protection authorities flew first aid to the area, and residents of Damasi, a village outside Larissa, were expected to spend the night in tents on a football field. There were no immediate reports of serious injury. One person was hurt by falling debris and at least six people including an elderly paraplegic man were rescued from the rubble of collapsed homes. Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, made a formal offer of assistance in a telephone call to his Greek counterpart, Nikos Dendias, in echoes of the earthquake diplomacy that has previously brought about détentes between the two regional rivals. Pictures emerged of extensive damage in the village of Mesochori, including to the church. There were also reports of acts of heroism. The Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, personally called the headteacher of a primary school in Damasi after its 63 pupils and 10 teachers survived the building’s collapse. The governor of Thessaly, Costas Agorastos, said schools had been advised to remain close on Thursday. Greece, which lies in a highly seismically active area, has long been prone to quakes, just like Turkey, its neighbour to the east. Giorgos Karakaisis, a professor of seismology at the University of Thessaloniki, said the last time Ellasona was struck by such a powerful tremor was more than 250 years ago.