Cephalonia’s Earthquakes Push Lixouri 20 cm Away

The second earthquake and the hundreds of aftershocks that took place on Cephalonia, Greece, resulted in Lixouri drawn about 20 cm away from the Paliki peninsula. According to the newspaper TA NEA, Greek scientists who processed the satellite data found that soil deformation in the area of the earthquake is at least three times bigger than the deformation of Attica’s soil caused by the earthquake of 1999 which was estimated at around 6 cm. The size of the deformation was captured by the German satellite – radar TerraSAR which runs every eleven days over every area of the Earth at a distance of 700 km. When the first earthquake took place on the island, scientists of the Geography Department of Harokopio University in collaboration with colleagues from the Greek Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization (EPPO) sent a letter to the authorities in order to give an urgent signal to the satellite to take a panoramic picture of the island on its way from the South to the North Pole. The analysis of the data showed that the surface of the ground in the center of the peninsula moved upwards and with a southern direction of 12 cm while Lixouri moved in the opposite direction for 6-7 cm. In Argostoli, the soil deformation was similar to that of Lixouri but much smaller. It moved just 2.5 cm. The satellite is expected to take new pictures of Cephalonia until mid March.

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