The October 9, 1996 earthquake in Cyprus: seismological, macroseismic and strong motion data

On October 9, 1996, an earthquake of magnitude 6.8 occurred in the sea area SW of Cyprus, Eastern Mediterranean. This earthquake, which caused damage mostly in the area of Paphos and Limassol, triggered an accelerograph installed at Yermasoyia dam, north of Limassol. The Geodynamic Institute of the National Observatory of Athens in cooperation with the Geological Survey of Cyprus deployed five digital accelerographs in order to record large aftershocks. Although the aftershock activity lasted over four months and included a large number of earthquakes with magnitudes 4.5 and greater, only the largest aftershock of January 13, 1997, having a magnitude of 5.9, triggered two of these five accelerographs. Moreover another digital accelerograph, operated by the Water Development Department of Cyprus, was triggered and this record was also taken into account in this study. The first Cyprean strong motion records obtained to date, gave us the opportunity to compare the results from their analysis to the already proposed attenuation relationships from other areas of the world with a similar seismotectonic regime. Although a general fitting to the attenuation curves for subduction events and strike-slip/reverse fault events was found, the calculated peak ground accelerations were found to be lower than others. Unfortunately, due to the lack of data from previous Cyprean earthquakes, it was not possible to conclude to precise attenuatio