A strong earthquake rattled with magnitude 5.3 on the Richter scale the island of Crete at 07:39 early Wednesday morning.
According to the Athens Geodetic Institute’s automatic solution, the epicenter of the earthquake was located 31 km South-West of Heraklion in Central Crete and its depth was at approximately 70 km.
The tremor was felt as “long and strong” eyewitnesses report, while others say that it lasted 5 to 6 seconds.
No injuries or material damage have been reported so far, that is one hour after the earthquake that was felt not only across the island but also on other islands of the south Aegean Sea, especially on Santorini.
The Director of Greek Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization, Efthimios Lekkas, told media that the tremor occurred in the well-known earthquake zones running from the North to the South of Crete and in the tectonic plate between Europe and Africa. He said that there was no connection between this earthquake and the one in Athens that stroke with 5.3R on July 19.Head of Geo-dynamics Institute, Gerasimos Papadopoulos, said that “if the depth is confirmed we do not expect many aftershocks.”
According to local media, head of the Crete Fire Service, Nikos Lagoudakis, state that “no problem” has been reported. However, he assured that the Fire Service was on alert to assist should any problem arise.
Reassuring is also the governor of Crete, Stavros Arnaoutakis, who said that no damages have been reported.
See also What to do in case of Earthquake – Guidelines by the Greek Tourism Ministry.
It was definitely longer than 5-6 seconds.
I was sitting on a high chair on the street and had my morning coffee.
And suddenly I felt a vibration like from the underground metro, then everything start to waiving and I saw the windows trembling.
It was at least 20 second at least.