A STRONG 5.4-magnitude earthquake rocked northern Greece yesterday near the country’s second city of Thessalonika, the National Observatory of Athens said.

The epicentre of the quake, which struck at 1150 GMT, was 23km southwest of Orthodox spiritual centre Mount Athos at a depth of 10 km, the observatory said.

There were no reports of victims or material damage.

Greece is highly susceptible to tremors, being situated on several geological fault lines.

In October 2020, a quake registering 7.0 struck in the Aegean Sea between the Greek island of Samos and Izmir in western Turkey, which bore the brunt with 114 deaths and more than 1,000 injured. In Greece, two youths died on Samos. – AFP, January 17, 2022.