Earthquake off the coast of Tenerife is of moderate intensity

An earthquake measuring 2.8 on the Richter scale shook the earth 30 kilometres off the coast of Tenerife on Thursday at 10.13 pm. The epicentre was at a depth of 33 kilometres. The Spanish National Geographic Institute (IGN) recorded the tremor via its monitoring network.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) also analyses data from the IGN. It recorded 48 earthquakes in the Canary Islands region over the past 30 days. On average, the earth shook 1.6 times a day. An earthquake off Gran Canaria was recently within the usual range.

Nine of these tremors occurred in the past seven days, which is a typical figure. What is striking, however, is the magnitude of Thursday’s tremor: the tremors over the past 30 days had an average magnitude of 2. The magnitude of the tremor off Tenerife was therefore 0.8 higher than this average.

Earthquake: IGN records further tremors near the islands

Earlier, at 2.59 pm on Thursday, the IGN had recorded an earthquake near El Hierro with a magnitude of 2.4; the epicentre was 12 kilometres deep. On Thursday at 8.36 am, the earth shook near Tenerife with a magnitude of 2 at a depth of 32 kilometres. On Wednesday at 9.36 pm, the stations recorded an earthquake 20 kilometres off the coast of Tenerife with a magnitude of 2.1; its epicentre was at a depth of 16 kilometres.