Very Strong slightly damaging earthquake at intermediate depth near Crete, Greece
Last update: October 12, 2013 at 5:34 pm by By Ashish Khanal
Update 15:19 UTC : More reports are coming in from landslides and fallen tiles of roofs, everything we consider slight damage. Due to the fact that insurance companies will have to intervene to pay back some damage for those insured against earthquakes, we are calling this earthquake a CatDat Orange (CATDAT James Daniell)
Some of the experience reports of our readers :
Chania : was in supermarket and all the produce jumped off the shelves onto the floor. They had to close the shop (large Marinopoulos at Mournies)Chania – I was in the smallest room of the apartment, which was a stroke of luck, as it happens. When it did happen I very quickly recognised it as an earthquake, but as it escalated I soon realised this to be by far the strongest I’d ever experienced. Seemed to go on for close to a minute; thankfully the apartment withstood the swaying with far more calm than me, given the empirical evidence from the smallest room in the apartment!
Chania : we could see earth moving and cars shaking. Cars alarms went off. Many were scared. We were also scared, but happy to be on a beach, and not in a building.
Update 15:19 UTC : According to «Flashnews.gr» (with news from Crete) vibration was long and there has been slight damage mainly glass doors smashed in the Old Town of Chania, while testimonials speak for marble that fell from balconies in the center. Kritika through said a citizen was slightly injured in his attempt to jump from the window.
Update 15:06 UTC : Some early reports are mentioning minor damage in houses due to fallen objects, nothing more at the moment.
The Greece Institute of Geodynamics is somewhat different than the other sources. GIG reports a Magnitude of 6.2 but at a depth of 60 km (less dangerous than the other values).
Update 14:26 UTC : The island of Crete had once again a narrow escape from a damaging earthquake. 30 km more to the east and the damage might have been very huge, even at the current depth as the sea is weakening the impact considerably.
Update 14:10 UTC : Below the seismogram as recorded at Gavdos (courtesy Geofon). The oscillations after the mainshock are small aftershocks
Update 14:03 UTC : The earthquake was felt completely different in various parts of Crete. As could be expected stronger to the west of the island than in the middle or at the eastern side.
Update 13:53 UTC : The theoretical damage engine from QAlarm has reports a max. of 20 injured and no fatalities based on more dangerous data than expected by EMSC (M6.6 at a depth of 40 km)
Update 13:47 UTC : The earthquake has also been felt well on the Northern African coast (IE Alexandria in Egypt)
Update 13:45 UTC : EMSC has changed his earthquake data into a Magnitude of 6.4 at a depth of 47 km, normally a lot more dangerous than the initial values, but based on the received intensities we can confirm our earlier expectations.
Update 13:41 UTC : We expect a lot of moderate to weak aftershocks for the coming hours and days.
Update 13:38 UTC : The shaking intensity values we are currently receiving from our readers are showing a moderate to strong shaking, which is normally just below the damage level. In other words based on all available data we have at this moment only slight damage is still a possibility.
Update 13:37 UTC : The depth of 60 km (preliminary data) is also the reason that the earthquake will have been felt in a very wicde area of hundreds of km.
Update 13:35 UTC : We do not expect any serious tsunami treat because of the depth of the earthquake (Focal Mechanism is not known yet at this moment).
Due to the intermediate depth of the earthquake, we expect maximum slight damage on the eastern part of Crete.
276 km S of Athens, Greece / pop: 729,137 / local time: 16:11:53.0 2013-10-12
171 km W of Irákleion, Greece / pop: 137,154 / local time: 16:11:53.0 2013-10-12
67 km W of Chaniá, Greece / pop: 54,565 / local time: 16:11:53.0 2013-10-12
30 km W of Plátanos, Greece / pop: 1,077 / local time: 16:11:53.0 2013-10-12
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 6.4
Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2013-10-12 16:11:54
GMT/UTC Time : 2013-10-12 13:11:54
Depth (Hypocenter) : 47 km
from: http://earthquake-report.com/2013/10/12/very-strong-earthquake-crete-greece-on-october-12-2013/