Earth sciences

An earthquake with preliminary magnitude 4.0 struck off the island of Crete on Thursday.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injury.

The Athens Geodynamic Institute said the undersea quake occurred at 9.19 a.m. local time, 56 kilometers southwest of the town of Paleochora, in southwest Crete, at a depth of 5.7 kilometers.

A team of scientists is being sent to the South Atlantic to study the giant iceberg A68a.

The 3,900-sq-km behemoth is currently drifting offshore of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia where it threatens to run aground.

If that happens it could make life extremely difficult for the wildlife haven's penguins and seals as they go about foraging for fish and krill.

Turkey is planning to build up to 150 underground dams as part of the government's Drought Action Plan, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli has said.

The ministry has devised an action plan to overcome the impact of global warming.

Turkey has been going through the most severe period of drought in the last 10 years, and the measures and strategies to be taken will impact future generations, according to an expert.

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 3.7 struck the island of Evia on Wednesday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The Geodynamic Institute said the quake struck shortly after 9 a.m. local time around 24 kilometers south of the coastal town of Kymi at a depth of 5 kilometers.

The earthquake was felt in Athens.

Greek scientists and researchers completed on December 6 the full mapping of the seabed around the island of Samos in the eastern Aegean and a large section of the Icarian Sea, as part of a project to understand the morphology of the ocean floor in the area.

Excavator "ploughed" the Central Beach of Sozopol to preserve the "priceless" pubs and cafes near the sea. By 9 pm last night, with lights out, he was still digging into the sand and stacking it into piles, outraged residents of the seaside town told bTV.

A building whose partial collapse resulted in the deaths of two teenagers during the 7 magnitude earthquake that rattled the eastern Aegean island of Samos on October 30 was demolished on Friday by municipal bulldozers.

The two students, Klairi and Aris, had been walking past the building in Vathi when the earthquake struck, causing a wall to collapse and crush them.

А magnitude 5 earthquake has struck Turkey's southeastern city of Siirt, according to Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority.

The Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, or AFAD, said Thursday there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the quake that hit at a depth of 20 kilometers (12 miles) at 8:45 a.m. (5:45 a.m. GMT).

Turkey's disaster authority and the U.S. Geological Survey say a 5.0 magnitude earthquake has struck Siirt in southeastern Turkey.

The Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, or AFAD, said on Dec. 3 there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the quake that hit at a depth of 20 kilometers (12 miles) at 8:45 a.m. (0545 GMT).