Abstract
ON July 20, about 2.15 a.m. Athens was shaken by an earthquake which lasted about 10 seconds, and probably had its epicentre in the Island of Euboea (Negroponte) in the iEgean Sea. The depth of focus appears to have been normal (10-15 km.), and the area in which the earthquake was destructive was about 5,000 square miles. Eight villages near Oropos were seriously damaged, seventeen people were killed, and about eighty injured. There appears to have been some fault displacement near Halcoussie. No damage appears to have been done in the capital. Greece is well known to be a centre of seismic activity in historic times, though of recent years the epicenters have been chiefly about 38·5 N. lat., 22-5 E. long., which is north-west of Athens. Very close to the present epicenter was an earthquake which occurred on April 27, 1894, and which did damage over an area of 3,000 square miles. Permanent surface movement in this 1894 shock was for thirty-five miles along a well-known fault parallel to the Gulf of Eubœa. The ground to the north-east side of the fault was moved slightly to the north-west and depressed by varying amounts from place to place, but never greater than 5 ft.
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Destructive Earthquake in Greece. Nature 142, 202 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/142202c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/142202c0