British tourists have told of the scary moment they were woken up by their hotel rooms “shaking” as an earthquake hit the Greek holiday island of Crete. The powerful 6.0 earthquake struck parts of the island in the early hours of the morning with authorities warning people to “move away from the coast immediately”.
Emergency services remain on alert to deal with the impact of any potential aftershocks, with details on casualty numbers unclear at this stage. Michaela Melton said she and her daughter woke up at around in the middle of the night after feeling her hotel room “shake.” She told The Mirror: “Myself & my daughter were woken at 1.51am after feeling the hotel room shake – at first we had no idea what it was both of us were feeling very anxious.
My daughter Georgia googled earthquake only to find that there had been a 6.1 in the area.
We have a car and decided to drive to hire ground after reading there was a possibility of a tsunami.”
Barry Rickhuss and his wife Ashleigh, from Kent, were staying near Stalis, Crete, when they received an automated tsunami alert at around 2am this morning.
He told The Mirror: “We went to reception of our hotel and there were many people there including panicked hotel staff who all advised to head up the hills.
“We all left together, with hotel staff and German, Swedish, Dutch and Greek people and waited.
“We all are looking down on the town beneath and checking our phones. We are waiting for the all clear.”
The quake’s epicentre was located off the coast of Crete, leading to fears that the island could be at risk of a tsunami.
Seismologist Efthymis Lekkas on Wednesday downplayed the significance of the tremors, and the potential for further events, stressing this was an isolated incident.
He told broadcaster ERT: “There is neither a notable foreshock sequence nor a significant series of aftershocks – these types of quakes typically occur as single events.”
Asked about a possible link with seismic activity on the nearby island of Santorini and a recent earthquake in Turkey, Lekkas downplayed any connection.
He said: He said: “There is absolutely no link to the seismic events in Santorini – the geotectonic context is entirely different and there is no connection whatsoever to the earthquake in Turkey.”