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No buildings and roads damaged by strong quake in Siberia

The 5.3-magnitude earthquake was recorded early on Monday night into Tuesday morning near Lake Baikal

IRKUTSK, September 22. /TASS/. The working groups set up after the powerful earthquake in the Irkutsk Region, East Siberia, to evaluate its possible impact on the houses, social facilities and roads did not find any damage, the Emergencies Ministry’s press service said on Tuesday.

"Joint task forces of specialists from municipalities and fire and rescue garrisons are working in the settlements. At the moment the facilities of the housing and utilities infrastructure and energy sector have been inspected. Vital social facilities are working as normal. Neither facilities nor roads have been damaged," the statement said.

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The working groups are also carrying out checks into the reports to the dispatcher services coming from local citizens.

The 5.3-magnitude earthquake was recorded early on Monday night into Tuesday morning near Lake Baikal. According to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center, the quake’s epicenter was 84 km to the southwest of Irkutsk at the depth of 2 km. In its turn, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry reported that two earthquakes rocked Russia’s Siberian Irkutsk Region on Monday Moscow time (early on Tuesday local time). The epicenter of the magnitude 5.6 and 2.3 earthquakes was located 15 kilometers of the settlement of Kultuk, Irkutsk Region. Earth tremor was felt in 12 districts of the region. Preliminarily, no casualties or damages were reported. The tremor was also felt in four districts of the nearby region of Buryatia.

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