A strong earthquake rattled with a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter scale the island of Evia on Friday morning and was felt in Athens, 85 km away, and even in Corinth and Argolida some 180 km afar.
According to the Geodynamic Institute of the National Observatory of Athens, the earthquake occurred at 8:26 a.m. with its epicenter being 6 km east of the village Prokopio in central Evia. Its focal depth was 14.2 km.
It has been followed by aftershocks with the biggest being 3.7 R, so far.
There are no reports of injuries, however, according to local authorities, school children were in panic and residents in the many villages in the area run out on the streets where they remain still 1.5 after the big tremor.
“It was strong but of no long duration,” a pharmacist told daily ethnos.gr
“No damage has been reported to us, but the earthquake was so big, it was up and down, which really foretells that we will have a lot of damages”, deputy mayor of Mantoudi, Yiannis Kantzouris, told state broadcaster ERT.
“Children have come out of schools in all the villages, people have come out. The area has quite a few old buildings. First, we look at the schools. The teachers will be notified shortly to let the children to go home,” Kantzouris added.
The regional governor of Central Greece, Fanis Spanos, pointed out that there are some landslides in the area.
picture via evima.gr
According to state-run news agency amna, together with Municipality and Civil Protection teams, police officers and firefighters are out on the streets to check for damages and landslides.
What Seismologists say
“Given the history of the area, it may be the ceiling of the size of earthquakes. But caution is needed until the evolution of the phenomenon is complete,” seismologist Gerasimos Papadopoulos, director of research at the Geodynamic Institute, told media.
He also emphasized that only cracks can be activated with such a size.
“The magnitude of today’s earthquake must be the largest for the specific region of Evia because we do not have a history of stronger earthquakes,” said the president of the Earthquake Planning and Protection organization (OASP), Professor Efthymios Lekkas.
He added that so far no damage has been reported.
Seismologists are closely monitoring the phenomenon, specifically for the aftershocks, waiting for the seismic activity in the next 24 hours to say with certainty that the 5.2R were the main earthquake.