ATHENS (AFP) - One woman died on the Greek island of Rhodes as a result of a strong undersea earthquake measuring 6.3 points on the Richter scale, officials said Tuesday.

The 56-year-old woman tripped and fell down the stairs while fleeing her house in the island village of Archangelos, officials said.

She was cradling her two-year old granddaughter in her arms at the time but the child was unharmed, state television Net reported.

The quake struck at 6:26 am (0326 GMT), causing alarm on the island, one of Greece's top travel destinations.

A hotel in the village of Neochori was evacuated pending an inspection after cracks appeared in its walls, Net reported.

The quake was felt in the outlying area as far as Crete but there were no reports of other injuries or damage.

"I don't think there are any serious repercussions, people are already going to work as usual," the deputy mayor of the town of Rhodes Yiannis Yiannakidis told Net.

"These (undersea) earthquakes are characterised by very weak or non-existent aftershock activity," George Stavrakakis, chairman of the Institute of Geodynamics at the National Observatory of Athens, told reporters.

"Once more, the sea saved us," he added.

The tremor had its epicentre in the sea south of Rhodes, 445 kilometres (275 miles) southeast of Athens, the institute said.

The US Geological Survey said earlier the quake measured 6.4 at a depth of 68 kilometers (42 miles) and 147 kilometers (91 miles) southwest of Mugla, Turkey.

Seismologists say that Greece, which accounts for half the seismic shocks recorded on the European continent, experiences tremors almost every day.

Most occur under the sea and cause little damage, but a 5.9-Richter quake near Mount Parnitha northwest of Athens killed 143 people in 1999.

In June, a 6.5 magnitude quake killed two people and injured about 140 in the northern Peloponnese.

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