Residents of four municipalities in Gran Canaria, felt the force of three earthquakes this morning (Thursday) that shook the west coast of the island. The IGN have confirmed that they took place in an area off the coast known as the Enmedio volcano, and were felt in Mogán, La Aldea de San Nicolás, Agaete and Gáldar.
According to the information published on its website by the National Geographic Institute, there were three consecutive quakes of 3.7, 3.3 and 3.0 on the Richter scale with the first one, the most intense one, recorded at 9.30am about 20 kilometres west of Agaete, at a depth of 23 kilometres.
Its magnitude was measured at 3.7 and its intensity classed as IV (on a scale of 1 to XII), which on the European macroseismic scale means that it has been "widely felt" by the population, but without causing any damage to buildings or infrastructures.
This was followed by another tremor of magnitude 3.3 at 9:35am at a depth of 12 kilometres, and then by a third of 3.0 magnitude at 9:48am, at a depth of 9 kilometres below the surface; both with epicentres in the Enmedio volcano out at sea.
The National Geographic Institute (IGN) also reported today that more than 112 earthquakes have been detected in the Santiago del Teide area, in the west of Tenerife in the last 24 hours.
INVOLCAN said earlier today that “the Canary Islands, in addition to being a volcanically active region, also register moderate tectonic activity. In fact, the seismicity that is regularly located between Tenerife and Gran Canaria, as well as this same seismic swarm today, is mainly related to a system of seismic faults that can occasionally produce earthquakes of magnitude strong enough to be felt on both islands."
The strongest instrumentally recorded earthquake in this area occurred on May 9th, 1989 and had a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter scale.
