A series of earthquakes has occurred off the Ionian coast of Greece (37.38N, 20.52E), beginning in the early hours of 26 October 2018 and continuing throughout the day. The largest event of the sequence occurred on Friday, 26 October at 00:54 local time, and had a magnitude of 6.5, with a hypocenter at only 5 km depth.
The Seismic Monitoring and Research Group, within the Department of Geoscience, University of Malta, presently operates the Malta Seismic Network, a network of six digital broadband seismic stations installed over Malta, Gozo and Comino. The earthquake sequence was clearly recorded on all the stations, including one foreshock of magnitude 4.9 at 00:22 (around 30 minutes before the main shock) and tens of aftershocks, including at least 7 of magnitude greater than 5.0.
The SMRG also operates a Virtual Seismic Network in the Mediterranean Region, which receives real-time data from a number of seismic stations in the Mediterranean and which provided a rapid estimation of the earthquake’s hypocenter and magnitude. The earthquake occurred on the northern end of the Hellenic arc, which represents the zone of subduction of the African plate beneath the Eurasian plate.
The earthquake was felt in Malta by several people. The SMRG received around 50 online reports by noon of 26 October, mostly from the area between St.Julian’s and Valletta (although there was one felt report also from Gozo). No damage was reported.
Visit the Seismic Monitoring & Research Group web page.