John Kolesidis / Reuters

Police officers search for evidence near the home of a prominent Greek ship owner after a makeshift bomb exploded in central Athens on Wednesday.

Police in Athens cleared people from an area close to the Acropolis on Wednesday, before a bomb apparently targeting the nearby home of a Greek ship owner exploded, reports said.

There were no reported injuries from the blast at the entryway of a home owned by the Tsakos family, which operates one of the country’s large shipping companies, nor was there any reported damage to the historical site.

A police source said an anonymous caller alerted a Greek daily newspaper that a bomb outside the Tsakos home would go off at 8:30 p.m. local time (5:30 p.m. ET), AFP reported.

The bomb was in a black backpack left at the home’s entrance, located just a few hundred yards from the south side of the Acropolis, one of Greece’s most popular tourist destinations.

By the time the blast occurred — around the time predicted by the caller — police had evacuated one or two people from the building and sealed off the area, according to The Associated Press, citing police spokesman Panagiotis Papapetropoulos.

"Judging by the minor extent of the damage, it can't have been a very strong explosive device," Papapetropoulos said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing.

In the past three years, amid a deep financial crisis and painful austerity measures, Greek anarchist groups have carried out a string of attacks against police and symbols of institutional authority and wealth in the country.

Orestis Panagiotou/EPA

Tourists visit the archaeological site immediately beneath the south side of the Athens Acropolis where a 42-year-old bank employee reportedly committed suicide Thursday.

ATHENS - A Greek bank worker plunged to his death from the Acropolis on Thursday, in what police said could be the latest in a growing number of suicides caused by economic suffering in the debt-ridden nation. 

The man was in his 40s and worked at Greece's troubled state-owned agricultural lender, ATEbank. He took a break shortly after starting work in the morning but never returned, police said. 

"Guards and tourists saw him at the spot before the jump," a police official said on condition of anonymity. 

"Others heard a loud scream and saw him lying on the ground. It could be suicide, but there's no note." The official said the man did not appear to have any financial problems. 

A report on Greek news site Ta Nea [link in Greek] said police were still trying to determine whether the death was an accident or suicide.

The incident happened at around 9 a.m., as tourists began arriving at Greece's most famous attraction, a 150-metre high, flat-topped rock which is the location of the 5th century BC Parthenon temple. 

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The growing rate of suicide in Greece has come to symbolize the human toll of the country's unabated debt crisis, as repeated bouts of austerity drive Greeks to despair. 

The country's government, which took office after a June 17 election, says the suffering has become intolerable and it will ask the European Union at a two-day summit starting on Thursday to ease the punishing terms imposed in exchange for an international bailout.

Conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is under huge public pressure to ease the burden of the IMF-EU bailout as he faces an opposition committed to tearing it up, which made strong gains in the election. 

'Martyr for Greece': Retiree's suicide sparks violent protests

Unable to attend the summit because of eye surgery at the weekend, Samaras sent a letter to EU leaders asking for a "different approach", a government spokesman said on Wednesday. 

He is unlikely to win much leeway, with euro zone paymaster Germany fiercely opposed to any let-up in the austerity. 

The suicide rate in Greece has shot up through five years of recession and two years of steep cuts to wages, pensions and jobs in exchange for two multi-billion-euro bailouts since 2010. 

Critics say the austerity has helped condemn the lifeless Greek economy to ever deeper recession, shuttering businesses and driving unemployment to almost 23 percent. 

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