Athens - Cairo: Europe and the Arabs
A 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck the Aegean Sea early Wednesday morning, 15 km from the Greek island of Kasos, according to the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ).
The earthquake was 83 km (52 ​​miles) deep, and tremors reached Israel, southwestern Turkey, and the northern coast of Egypt, but no casualties or damage were reported. Social media in Egypt was gripped by fear and panic after the aftershocks were felt, with some expressing fear of a repeat of the earthquake that struck Egypt in the 1990s, which resulted in a large number of deaths and injuries.
For its part, emergency services in Greece called on citizens to stay away from the coast, fearing a tsunami. According to the Brussels-based Euronews website, Greece is regularly hit by earthquakes due to its location on several fault lines.
Between January 26 and February 13, more than 18,400 earthquakes, mostly low-magnitude, were recorded off islands in the Cyclades archipelago, including the popular tourist island of Santorini.
Last February, the Aegean islands of Santorini and Amorgos experienced successive earthquakes within short time intervals, some exceeding 4 magnitude on Santorini. This prompted authorities to raise the alert level, advising people to stay out of enclosed spaces and small ports, and deploying disaster response units on the ground as a precaution.