A 5.7 magnitude earthquake struck off the eastern coast of Crete early Friday, triggering a swarm of at least 51 aftershocks and placing regional civil protection agencies on heightened alert, though no injuries or structural damage were immediately reported.
The Geodynamic Institute in Athens recorded the main tremor at just before 6:30 a.m. local time, with the epicenter located in the Mediterranean Sea approximately 23 kilometers southwest of Goudouras in the Sitia municipality of the Lasithi region.
Sitia Mayor Giorgos Zervakis said the sustained sequence of aftershocks had caused significant anxiety among residents, and confirmed that municipal emergency services were actively assessing conditions across the district.
Lasithi Deputy Regional Governor Giannis Androulakis said the civil protection mechanism had been placed on standby and urged residents to remain calm.
"We are closely monitoring the evolution of the phenomenon," Mr. Androulakis said.
Eastern Crete sits within one of the most seismically active zones in Europe, where the African tectonic plate subducts beneath the Eurasian plate along the Hellenic Arc — a geological boundary that has produced some of the Mediterranean's largest historical earthquakes. Offshore events in this zone are common and rarely cause major damage on land, though sustained aftershock sequences can unsettle communities and occasionally trigger localized structural concerns in older buildings.
Authorities said they would continue monitoring the situation and update the public if conditions changed.