# My god that was scary



## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

Well that is definitely the strongest earthquake I have ever felt. I was upstairs and the house was literally shaking and the noise was like a washing machine spinning. 

Dennis was down at the harbour getting an eye test and he says people were running around screaming down there.

The Earthquake watch website says it was a 5.3 magnitude.


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## RMcC (Dec 31, 2013)

Veronica said:


> Well that is definitely the strongest earthquake I have ever felt. I was upstairs and the house was literally shaking and the noise was like a washing machine spinning.
> 
> Dennis was down at the harbour getting an eye test and he says people were running around screaming down there.
> 
> The Earthquake watch website says it was a 5.3 magnitude.


Hi Everyone,

I really hope everyone is OK and no one has been injured or any property damaged. Sounds like a pretty frightening experience and lets hope there are no more to come.
Stay safe

Roy


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## PeteandSylv (Sep 24, 2008)

I'm normally fascinated by earth tremors but that one was scary. Our whole house was rocking about and after it stopped the pool water was almost splashing out of the pool.

There have been minor damage reports submitted but that's all I know. It was certainly also significant in Turkey and recorded quite high in Israel.

I hope it's not a warmup for the big one. There hasn't been a destructive/damaging category earthquake in Cyprus since 1999 therefore we're well overdue.

Pete


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

PeteandSylv said:


> I hope it's not a warmup for the big one. There hasn't been a destructive/damaging category earthquake in Cyprus since 1999 therefore we're well overdue.
> 
> Pete


Thanks for that happy thought


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## DH59 (Feb 23, 2010)

Veronica said:


> Thanks for that happy thought


Indeed! It was quite scary. We were in Paphos town in M&S and there was a rumble and shelves started to shake. Outside the road appeared to be moving. We dashed out and several places had been evacuated and people were very shook up. Felt a couple of aftershocks, which is now believed to have been a second quake.


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## Baywatch (Mar 30, 2014)

DH59 said:


> Indeed! It was quite scary. We were in Paphos town in M&S and there was a rumble and shelves started to shake. Outside the road appeared to be moving. We dashed out and several places had been evacuated and people were very shook up. Felt a couple of aftershocks, which is now believed to have been a second quake.


We did not notice it in Pissouri, strange


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## zach21uk (Jun 26, 2014)

Felt very strongly up here in Marathounda. Cyprus Geological Survey have set the confirmed magnitude at 5.6. Also felt the larger aftershock which was a 4.0, but didn't feel any of the subsequent ones. 

Got some minor damage to the house I am renting, I think. Some cracks that weren't there before, 2 of which are concerning. Property manager will check them tomorrow and then decide if anything needs to be done.


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## David_&_Letitia (Jul 8, 2012)

Nothing in Polis...


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## Talagirl (Feb 24, 2013)

There are a few more cracks on the outside of our apartment block. Actually it's two blocks with a bit of wood/plaster/plastic connecting the two buildings - when we walk to our apartment we can see a gap on the floor between the tiles about 2 - 2.5cm wide. A bit of polyfilla should do the trick!


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## virgil (May 3, 2012)

Veronica said:


> Well that is definitely the strongest earthquake I have ever felt. I was upstairs and the house was literally shaking and the noise was like a washing machine spinning.
> 
> Dennis was down at the harbour getting an eye test and he says people were running around screaming down there.
> 
> The Earthquake watch website says it was a 5.3 magnitude.


I was going to make a joke about the earth moving for y'all out there, but it must have been quite scary for some of you guys. Reckon I would be on the Valium by now ... or the Scotch


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## zach21uk (Jun 26, 2014)

Looking at the Cyprus Geological Survey website, there have been a tonne of aftershocks since the perceptable ones yesterday and there is a definite concern on some of the Geological forums that there'll be at least one more large one that we can all feel.

Take a look here: http://81.4.135.34:8080/earthquakes...batch_size]=100&query_criteria=&commit=Search

I have the filters pre-set on that link to show earthquakes just for yesterday and today, and the times shown at 3 hours off, so for example on the left hand side, it shows the big one yesterday at 8:25am. 

If you zoom in on the map to the right, you can see that all the quakes are epic-centered in the same area along the same fault line.


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

But in actual fact the big one that we all felt was at 11.30am yesterday not 8.25. So it may be that the time given on the website is not local time.


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## zach21uk (Jun 26, 2014)

As I mentioned in my post, the times shown are 3 hours of, so 8:25am was 11:25am, et cetera.


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## David_&_Letitia (Jul 8, 2012)

David_&_Letitia said:


> Nothing in Polis...


Actually, it appears that Polis did have a tremor according to the filling station I was in this morning! Neither Letitia or I felt anything, so it must have been a little wobble!


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

David_&_Letitia said:


> Actually, it appears that Polis did have a tremor according to the filling station I was in this morning! Neither Letitia or I felt anything, so it must have been a little wobble!


It certainly wasn't a little wobble here I was hovering the landing at the time and had to lean against the wall to stop myself falling over. The noise was horrendous. Left me feeling very shaken for ages.


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## zach21uk (Jun 26, 2014)

We're not much further down the road than you Veronica, as you know and up here, it was strong enough to knock items down from our shelves, knock the toilet seats down in the bathrooms, knock the ironing board over, and other things like that.

My wife and I were sitting on the sofa eating a late breakfast when it started. I looked around for a few moments and then realized what it was, while my wife was freaked out and proclaiming "oh my god is that an earthquake" over and over. 

My sister was upstairs asleep and a few seconds in to it we heard her yell "Wow this is f****n awesome!" as shes a bit of an adrenaline junkie and she then proceeded to run downstairs in her underwear as it occured to her that we should go outside before it occured to me. By that point it was all over though.

Meanwhile, our cat slept through the entire thing and woke up 10 minutes later wondering why we were all freaked out. 

I must admit, a few seconds in, as it got stronger, I did start to get a bit worried as I do know that Cyprus lies over a fault line and was concerned that it was going to keep getting stronger.

In retrospect, I suppose the correct course of action would have been to grab Liz, my sister and the cat and get outside as quickly as possible. Standing in doorways is not recommened these days as door frames are not as strong as they once used to be.

I'll be faster to react to the next one.


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## DH59 (Feb 23, 2010)

Certainly not a wobble here either! We arrived home to find several items fallen over, including Keith's telescope, which was attached to a tripod and leaning against a wall. Nothing damaged though.

Zach, all I can say is: your toilet seats should have been down anyway


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## Rema (Aug 12, 2012)

Hope all is now settled down for everybody. We are on holiday in India so the news came as a big concern for all at home. 
Apparently our wine store was not damaged so I can breath again!


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

Rema said:


> Hope all is now settled down for everybody. We are on holiday in India so the news came as a big concern for all at home.
> Apparently our wine store was not damaged so I can breath again!


I don't think anyone was hurt or any major damage done apart from stuff falling off the shelves in supermarkets. It was just a bit scary at the time.


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## Talagirl (Feb 24, 2013)

Seems Crete has had a few earthquakes as recently as today:

Today's Earthquakes in Crete, Greece


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

Yes a friend sent me the link. Looks like the whole of this region is being hit by tremors at the moment. Lets hope there isn't a really big one to come.:fingerscrossed:


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## hiatusxenia (May 6, 2013)

I'm glad you all seem to be alright and let's hope that is the end of it. I remember the one in the sea near Larnaca in the 80's. I have never felt so scared in all my life. The whole house swayed. The first thing that happened was what sounded like an enormous explosion. In those days we frequently heard rumours that the Turks would re-invade and take the whole island and that was my first thought and it took me several seconds to realise what was actually happening!

However one thing that does seem to be adhered to are the building regulations concerning protection against earthquake as nothing was badly damaged. It is very frightening though.


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## Baywatch (Mar 30, 2014)

hiatusxenia said:


> I'm glad you all seem to be alright and let's hope that is the end of it. I remember the one in the sea near Larnaca in the 80's. I have never felt so scared in all my life. The whole house swayed. The first thing that happened was what sounded like an enormous explosion. In those days we frequently heard rumours that the Turks would re-invade and take the whole island and that was my first thought and it took me several seconds to realise what was actually happening!
> 
> However one thing that does seem to be adhered to are the building regulations concerning protection against earthquake as nothing was badly damaged. It is very frightening though.


The strongest in Cyprus history is one 6.6 in magnitude. This means 10 times more energy then this one. Lets hope it stay there


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## Cleo Shahateet (Feb 23, 2009)

I am glad we were not in town for it! My wife remembers being shaken out of bed by the big one in 1996. Let's hope there are not aftershocks for 4 months like that time! See below! 

"On October 9, 1996, an earthquake of magnitude 6.8 occurred in the sea area SW of Cyprus, Eastern Mediterranean. This earthquake, which caused damage mostly in the area of Paphos and Limassol, triggered an accelerograph installed at Yermasoyia dam, north of Limassol. The Geodynamic Institute of the National Observatory of Athens in cooperation with the Geological Survey of Cyprus deployed five digital accelerographs in order to record large aftershocks. Although the aftershock activity lasted over four months and included a large number of earthquakes with magnitudes 4.5 and greater, only the largest aftershock of January 13, 1997, having a magnitude of 5.9, triggered two of these five accelerographs"


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

Baywatch said:


> The strongest in Cyprus history is one 6.6 in magnitude. This means 10 times more energy then this one. Lets hope it stay there


Actually the strongest in cyprus history was 1222 which had a magnitude of up to 7.5
It destroyed the castle and caused a lot of other damage and deaths.


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

Well our little rumble fades into insignificance against the disaster in Nepal.
My heart goes out to the Nepalese people . So many deaths, parents have lost children, children have been orphaned, so many people have lost everything.


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## Baywatch (Mar 30, 2014)

Veronica said:


> Actually the strongest in cyprus history was 1222 which had a magnitude of up to 7.5
> It destroyed the castle and caused a lot of other damage and deaths.


Wonder if they had invented the Richter scale 1222?


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## Rema (Aug 12, 2012)

Veronica said:


> Well our little rumble fades into insignificance against the disaster in Nepal.
> My heart goes out to the Nepalese people . So many deaths, parents have lost children, children have been orphaned, so many people have lost everything.


I have many friends in Nepal and my eldest son was one day out from Everest Base Camp when it was hit on Saturday.
He has now managed to get to safe ground off the mountain but tells me the carnage is terrifying, whole villages wiped out, no water or electricity and very little shelter that has not had some sort of damage.
He is one of the lucky ones!


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

OMG Rema, you must have been so worried until you knew he was safe. 
I'm so happy for you that he has survived.


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