A strong earthquake measuring 5.3 magnitude occurred early Sunday morning at 05:32 in Epirus.

According to the Geodynamic Institute, the epicenter was 12 km east of Leptokarya in Thesprotia, and the focal depth was 12.9 kilometers.

Four minutes later, a 4.7-magnitude tremor occurred in roughly the same area, about 20 km from Ioannina, near the border with Albania.

The quake was strongly felt in Epirus, the Ionian Islands, and Thessaly, partly because it occurred in the early morning hours.

The seismic tremor led many residents to leave their homes and gather in the streets. So far, no serious damage has been reported.

“People have gone outside, they are frightened and, as usually happens with earthquakes above magnitude 5, there has been a power outage,” said Efthymios Chrysostomou, the Deputy Mayor for Civil Protection of the Municipality of Ioannina, speaking to ERT.

At the same time, the regional governor of Epirus, Alexandros Kahrimanis, said in a post that rocks fell onto the Egnatia Odos highway on the section toward Igoumenitsa. In addition, power outages have been observed in some areas of the Ioannina basin.

The tremor was felt across a large part of Epirus, as well as on Ionian islands such as Corfu and Lefkada. It was even felt in parts of Western Greece, as far as Patras.