People living in coastal areas have been advised to move to safety after an earthquake struck off the coast of Crete.
A quake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale hit 60km (37 miles) to the northeast of Siteía in Greece at around 1.25am local time on Monday, according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC).
It occurred at a depth of of 80 kilometres, the independent monitoring organisation said.
A warning message tweeted by the EMSC advised those next to the sea to "move away from the coast and reach a higher place".
No such message has yet been broadcast by Greek authorities.
The earthquake is reported to have been felt as far away as north Africa. No injuries or damage to buildings has been reported in any of the areas affected.
Local reports say mobile phone systems in Crete were temporarily overloaded as a result of demand on the network in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
Crete lies within a seismically active area, with a number of small earthquakes recorded on the popular tourist island in recent years.
Earlier this year, a 4.8-magnitude earthquake hit in the sea near Crete, according to the Geodynamic Institute of the National Observatory of Athens.
The epicentre of the earthquake was estimated to lie 74 kilometres (45 miles) to the southeast of the village of Goudouras Lasithi, with a recorded depth of 10.7 kilometres (6.6 miles).
A man also died in 2021 when a 6.5-magnitude earthquake saw buildings collapse across the island.
People were seen fleeing into the streets in the city of Heraklion, and a number of schools were forced to evacuate.
Burhan Daş, head of Chamber of Geology Engineers in the earthquake-prone Turkish province of Elazığ, last week said Turkey “slides to the west toward Greece, between 20 and 30 centimetres every year" due to earthquakes.
