More than 500 earthquakes took place in the vicinity of Malta over a 19 year period, with most so small they weren t felt by residents.
Scientists from the University of Malta s Department of Geosciences identified the tremors in the country s first national earthquake catalogue.
The 500 earthquakes took place around the islands between 1995 and 2014 - equating to 26 a year.
They were the recorded on the only seismic station operating on Malta during this period, code-named WDD and located at Wied Dalam, limits of Birżebbuġa. Most of the earthquakes were weak and not felt by residents.
The epicentres were all off-shore and most were located along the graben systems beneath the sea. The grabens are deep submarine canyons which separate Malta from Lampedusa, Pantelleria and North Africa in general.
Newsbook
Seismic Monitoring & Research Group (University of Malta)
Tista taqra bil-
A 4.7 magnitude earthquake whose epicentre is just 100km north of Malta has been recorded on Tuesday night by the Seismic Monitoring and Research Group at the University of Malta.
According to the SMRG, which maintains the Malta Seismic Network, the epicentre is close to the coast of southern Sicily, between the inland city of Vittoria and the fishing village of Scoglitti.
Though there are no reports of damage or injury yet, the tremor has been felt across Malta and in a significant proportion of Sicily. Social media reports suggest that it was even felt in the Sicilian capital of Palermo, which lies on the northern coast of the island and thus considerably further away from the epicentre than Malta.