Paphos Life

Tuesday’s latest moderate earthquake in Paphos highlights the fact that the Mediterranean island’s two main airports are built either on an active seismic fault or near one, Philenews reports.

An active fault is a fault that is likely to become the source of another earthquake sometime in the future, according to geologists.

They commonly consider faults to be active if there has been movement observed or evidence of seismic activity during the last 10,000 years.

The international airport in Larnaca is built on an active seismic fault and the smaller one, in Paphos, near one.

The epicenter of Tuesday’s 4.7-magnitude earthquake was 10 kilometres south-easterly of the coastal city, in the Paphos-Mandria airport’s wider region, according to deputy head of the Geological Department Christodoulos Hadjigeorgiou.

The latest earthquake is believed to be in the same seismogenic area that sparked the big one in 1953 and that of 1996.

On September 10, 1953, a catastrophic double earthquake occurred in the province of Paphos of magnitude 6 and 6.1 on the Richter scale.

It had killed 40 people while another 100 were injured and 4,000 left homeless.

https://in-cyprus.philenews.com/cyprus- ... -near-one/

Considering the small land area of Cyprus, is there anywhere that is safe from Earthquakes?

The whole of Cyprus is surrounded by 3 active plates, referred to as the Cyprus Arc and are responsible for the Troodos mountain range and the fascinating Ophiolite sequence.

The geology is incredible and worth looking up what you're all sitting on.

We've sold those rock collections far and wide

To the best of my knowledge, no airport has ever reported seismic damage to aircraft landing or taking off or even taxiing. I think the worst case of earthquake damage was to Clark airport in the Philippines but I never heard of damage to aircraft, although there were a number of deaths due to building failure. After all, a plane in flight is often badly buffeted and is therefore strong enough to minimise the risk of seismic movements when it is on the ground.

My husband flying to Narita airport, Tokio, Japan, was told on his arrival there, to stay airborne as the airport was experiencing an earthquake.
However, once it had stopped shaking and when the runway and taxiways had been inspected, he was allowed to land his flight there..
Which he did safely....
Dee