2019 Albania earthquake

Northwestern Albania was struck by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake with an epicentre 16 kilometres west-southwest of Mamurras, at 03:54 CET on 26 November 2019. The earthquake lasted at least 50 seconds and was felt in Albania's capital Tirana, and in places as far away as Taranto and Belgrade, 370 kilometres northeast of the epicentre. The maximum felt intensity was VIII on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale. A total of 51 people were killed in the earthquake, with about 3,000 injured. It was the second earthquake to strike the region in the space of three months. It was the strongest earthquake to hit Albania in more than 40 years, its deadliest earthquake in 99 years and the world's deadliest earthquake in 2019.

Albania lies across the convergent boundary between the Eurasian Plate and the Adriatic Plate, part of the complex collision zone with the African Plate. The structure of the western part of Albania is dominated by active thrust tectonics. The region is seismically active, with several M ≥ 6 earthquakes in the last hundred years. In 1979, the largest of these events struck 70 kilometres further north, in Montenegro, killing 136 people . A significant earthquake in the area was an M 5.6 event on 21 September 2019 with an epicentre ENE of Durrës, which was at the time the most powerful in 30 years and damaged 500 houses. That epicenter was only 15 kilometers away from Tirana to the Northwest. The epicenter of the 2019 Albania earthquake was about 30 kilometers from Tirana to the Northwest. So, it is very probable that the 21 September 2019 event was the largest foreshock of the earthquake, as according to the empirical Bath's Law, the maximum foreshock is supposed to be smaller than the main shock by 1.2 time. As far as this assumption is valid, most if not all what had recognised as hundreds of aftershock actually were foreshocks of this earthquake.

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