Large parts of Malta were woken up by a magnitude 4.5 earthquake that occurred last night, 30 September at 03:00 local time. The epicentre of the earthquake was offshore, 23km south of Birzebbugia. The event was located by the Seismic Monitoring and Research Group, within the Department of Geosciences, University of Malta.
The SMRG operates the Malta Seismic Network, an array of 8 seismic stations installed over the three islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino. The network relays data to the University computers in real time. Yesterday鈥檚 earthquake was recorded on all the stations, as well as on seismic stations in Sicily. The SMRG received more than 650 felt reports on its website from all over Malta, with most respondents reporting shaking and a rumbling sound, together with rattling doors and windows. Another earthquake of magnitude 3.3 from the same epicentral area was felt yesterday 29 September at 20:24 local time.
The earthquakes are probably located on a fault which borders the Malta graben, a deep channel in the sea floor running parallel to Malta鈥檚 southern coastline. In recent weeks, this area has been seismically active and a sequence of more than 12 similar earthquakes have been recorded by the SMRG from the same area. Last night鈥檚 event was strongly felt because it had the largest magnitude in the sequence.
Anyone who felt the tremor may fill in the .
The information will be useful for the SMRG鈥檚 research about local earthquakes.
