During the first week of February, hundreds of earthquakes struck the island of Cephalonia, west of Greece. The series of shakes had started last January and included two magnitude six earthquakes and over 1,000 aftershocks of lower magnitude.

These strong earthquakes occurred in the same location as the destructive events of 1953. Between August 9 and 12, 1953, three earthquakes of magnitude 6.4, 6.8 and 7.2 took place in Cephalonia, leading to hundreds of casualties and extensive damage. In the following months, 80 per cent of the population left the island.This year the earthquake sequence has extensively damaged the area with almost half of the houses declared unfit.

Locally, three earthquakes struck close to Malta, two on February 8, 170 kilometres and 362 kilometres southeast and east of the island, respectively, and one on February 17, 55 kilometres southwest of Malta (red stars, inset map).

Anyone who experienced earthquake shaking is asked to fill in the online questionnaire on the website of the University of Malta’s Seismic Monitoring and Research Unit.

http://seismic.research.um.edu.mt

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