6.3 magnitude earthquake shakes Greek island of Crete

A strong 6.3 magnitude earthquake, the second serious one in two weeks, shook the eastern part of the Greek island of Crete, the country’s largest on Tuesday.

As announced by the Geodynamic Institute of the Athens Observatory, the epicenter of the earthquake, which took place at 12.24 local time (09.24 GMT), was located 23 kilometers east of the town of Zakros, in the east of the island, and at a depth of 8.7 kilometers.

At the moment there is no information on injuries, although the tremor, which lasted for almost 30 seconds, generated much concern in the Cretan capital, Heraklion, and in other tourist towns near the epicenter, such as Ayios Nikolaos or Sitía, where damage has been reported in buildings and landslides.

In addition, the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center EMS issued an alert for a possible mild tsunami after the earthquake.

The mayor of Sitía, Yorgos Zervakis, was the one who informed the media that the strong earthquake damaged some buildings, including the town hall, although the press office of the firefighters told Efe that there are no reports of material damage or personal victims.

Near Sitía a church collapsed completely. Precisely the collapse of the dome of a temple caused the death of the only person who died in the previous earthquake, of magnitude 5.8 on the Richter scale, which at the end of September damaged thousands of buildings in Crete, leaving hundreds of people homeless. .

The president of the Seismic Protection Agency, Efzymis Lekkas, said on Helena public television, ERT, that today’s earthquake is not related to the previous one.

The 6.3 earthquake was also felt on the islands of Rhodes, Santorini and Karpathos, near where another earthquake occurred in the sea just eight minutes later, in this case of magnitude 4.6.

________________________________________