Residents of Crimea’s southern coast reported a “small earthquake” on Monday, Oleg Kryuchikov, an adviser to the region’s governor, announced, news that quickly sparked concern in Russia.

Map of CrimeaPhoto: Marek Uliasz / Alamy / Profimedia Images

“Residents of the Southern coast of Crimea report an earthquake. We are waiting for official information from seismologists. There are no reports of destruction or casualties,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.

Kryuchykov added that information about an earthquake with a magnitude of up to 3 points on the Richter scale came from another seismic station in Alushta.

According to him, the earthquake occurred at 16:25 in the Black Sea, the epicenter was at a depth of 15 kilometers and at a distance of 25 kilometers from the coast of Crimea.

“They are barely noticeable on the territory of the Republic of Crimea,” he assured.

But the article about the earthquake quickly became the most read news of the day on TASS, Russia’s most prominent state-run news agency.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center later announced that it had recorded an earthquake measuring 4.4 on the Richter scale.

Petro Shebalin, director of the Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that the earthquake has nothing to do with the earthquakes that have occurred in recent weeks in Turkey, the aftershocks of two that devastated the country. and Northern Syria on February 6.

The Russian scientist noted that stronger earthquakes are still possible in Crimea, but not like those in Turkey.

“This independent earthquake has nothing to do with the tragedy in Turkey. Such earthquakes occur there from time to time, it is not unusual. In principle, stronger earthquakes are possible in Crimea, in 1927 there was a known earthquake in Yalta. It was very strong, but almost a hundred years have passed, so strong earthquakes are rare, but they do happen,” he explained.

“There [în Turcia]after all, it was a magnitude of almost 8. An earthquake of such strength is hardly possible in Crimea,” said Shebalin.