Every quake recorded near Ohrid and around the lake in the last month, how far away it was, and where the official word comes from.
Loading the latest information…
Town Tools builds free, public tools for Ohrid and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.
What has actually been recorded under and around Lake Ohrid lately, from the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre's regional catalogue. Most of these are too small to feel. This is a record of what already happened — not a warning, and not a forecast.
Strongest in this window
M4.5
154 km south of Ohrid · Not reported ·
52 earthquakes of magnitude M2.0 or larger within 170 km of town in the last 30 days.
| Magnitude | Where | Depth | Shaking | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M2.3 | 99 km west | 15 km deep | Not reported | |
| M2.1 | 113 km south | 15 km deep | Not reported | |
| M2.6 | 79 km northwest | 15 km deep | Not reported | |
| M3.3 | 165 km south | 9 km deep | Not reported | |
| M2.5 | 159 km northwest | 15 km deep | Not reported | |
| M2.5 | 118 km northeast | 15 km deep | Not reported | |
| M3.4 | 60 km west | 11 km deep | Not reported | |
| M2.1 | 130 km southwest | 15 km deep | Not reported | |
| M2.3 | 104 km southwest | 15 km deep | Not reported | |
| M2.1 | 36 km west | 15 km deep | Not reported | |
| M2.6 | 41 km west | 15 km deep | Not reported | |
| M2.2 | 31 km west | 15 km deep | Not reported |
This page is not an earthquake warning
Lake Ohrid sits in a graben — a block of the earth's crust that has dropped between two faults as the ground on either side pulls apart. The trough runs roughly north to south for about 40 km and is what makes the lake 288 metres deep. The faults that made it are still moving, which is why small earthquakes are a normal part of the record here rather than an event.
The one the region still measures itself against struck on 18 February 1911, at 21:35, about 15 km down in the Ohrid–Korça area: magnitude 6.6 to 6.7, and shaking rated at the top of the intensity scale in the worst-hit places. Long before that, the ancient city of Lychnidos — Ohrid under its Roman name — was destroyed by an earthquake in 526 AD. The town has been rebuilt after shaking more than once.
Swarms are also part of the pattern: a stretch of many small quakes over days or weeks, none of them individually alarming. A swarm is not a prediction of a large quake, and neither is a quiet month a promise of one. What either of them is worth is knowing what to do before the ground moves, rather than working it out while it does.
Checked 8 August at 1:25. Earthquake data from EMSC (European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC-CSEM), open data). Magnitude, depth and felt intensity are revised as analysis improves, and very fresh quakes can take minutes to appear.