Magnitude 5.1 quake off southern Italy felt across Malta

A magnitude 5.1 earthquake off Italy’s southern tip shook residents across Malta early on Saturday, with many reporting they were woken up by the tremor, Malta Today reported.

The quake was first detected at 5.53am by seismic equipment operated by the Rome-based National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology. Monitoring instruments run by the University of Malta’s Seismic Monitoring and Research Group picked up the tremor just one second later.

Residents from across the island reported feeling buildings shake during the early-morning hours.

According to the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Centre, the earthquake struck in the Ionian Sea at a depth of about 58km, roughly 62km off the coast of Reggio Calabria in southern Italy.

Data from Italian seismic monitoring centres indicates the quake was the strongest in a series of tremors recorded off Sicily over the past week.

Earthquakes of magnitude 5 are classified as moderate and can be felt by almost everyone in the affected area. Around 1,300 earthquakes of this strength are recorded worldwide each year.

The last similar tremor to be widely felt in Malta occurred in September, when a magnitude 5.2 earthquake off the island’s southern coast was reported by residents in various localities.

Although Malta itself does not lie on a major fault line, the seabed in the central Mediterranean is close to the tectonic boundary between the African and Eurasian plates, making distant earthquakes in surrounding regions occasionally perceptible on the islands.