6.4R in Albania

A large earthquake in Albania this morning caused several buildings to collapse, sparking panic among residents and fears of mass casualties.

The tremor, which had a magnitude of 6.4, struck just 20 miles from the heavily populated capital Tirana and was felt across hundreds of miles of eastern Europe. 

Residents rushed from shaking buildings as the quake hit, some holding babies in their arms, witnesses said.   

The Albanian government said Durres had suffered the worst damage and several people had been taken to hospital in Tirana. But a spokesman said there had been no confirmed fatalities by 5.30am.The US Geological Survey warned an earthquake of that size had the potential to cause widespread damage and casualties. Many reports of shaking came from the Macedonian capital Skopje, 100 miles north east of the epicenter of Durres. One local, Eva Ellereit, tweeted: 'Nothing like waking up to your entire bedroom shaking in the middle of the night earthquake.'

In September a 5.6-magnitude quake in almost the same spot injured at least 70 people and damaged around 500 buildings. A 6.4-magnitude earthquake would be around 16 times stronger than that, experts said.  

Computer predictions from the USGS said around 8,000 people would have felt 'severe' shaking in today's quake, and a total of almost 12 million would have felt it in countries including Greece, Montenegro, Kosovo and North Macedonia.

An aftershock of around 5.4-magnitude shook the area minutes after the main tremor. 

In this time of writing this, we have had two, a 5.3R and a 5.3R earthquakes following the 6.4R earthquake, as can be seen by the listing of EMSC, as below.

News will surface on damages and casualties later today.

Below is our calculated stress for the region expected two day ahead. See the locations

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7725663/Fears-damage-6-4-magnitude-earthquake-hits-rattles-Albania.html

Magnitude	Mw 6.4
Region	ADRIATIC SEA
Date time	2019-11-26 02:54:11.3 UTC
Location	41.45 N ; 19.44 E
Depth	10 km
Distances	34 km NW of Tirana, Albania / pop: 375,000 / local time: 03:54:11.3 2019-11-26 16 km NW of Shijak, Albania / pop: 14,200 / local time: 03:54:11.3 2019-11-26