A 5.5 magnitude earthquake has hit northwestern Greece and southern Albania last night with the epicenter near the Greek city of Ioannina, close to the border with Albania, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Apart from a couple of abandoned houses in southern Albanian city of Tepelena, there are no reports of any damages or casualties so far.
The earthquake hit as 22:15 CET at a depth of 17km followed by several aftershocks overnight and into the morning of October 16th.
The earthquake tremors were felt as far as Albania’s capital Tirana and in the Greek Island of Corfu with reports of periodical tremors causing lamps an house furniture to move.
Earthquakes are the norm in this part of the world as the African Plate moves northward towards Europe by 4-10mm annually, with regular earthquakes occurring alongside the Eurasia-Africa plate boundary, mainly in Turkey, Greece, Sicily and Italy.
The highest rates of seismic activity in the Mediterranean are felt along the Hellenic subduction zone of southern Greece, along the North Anatolian Fault Zone of western Turkey and the Calabrian subduction zone of southern Italy.
The Ioannina earthquake brought back memories of the 2015 earthquake that hit the Ionian Islands of Lefkada, Ithaca and Kefalonia with a magnitude 6.1, killing two and damaging several houses in the region.
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