A magnitude 6.6 earthquake shook the west coast of the island of Cyprus early Tuesday, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
The strong and relatively shallow quake that struck at 1:07 a.m. GMT was centered 48 kilometers (30 miles) west-northwest of the town of Polis (Poli), the USGS said.
Tremors were felt across the Mediterranean island and around the region with reports from as far as Turkey, Israel and Lebanon.
It shook buildings in Nicosia (Lefkoşa), 130 kilometers away, prompting some who were awake to go out into the streets.
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) President Ersin Tatar said that no damage had been reported following the quake felt across the island.
According to Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), the quake was felt in the Antalya, Mersin, Hatay, Adana, Isparta, Burdur and Konya provinces.
"It was frightening. The whole building was shaking endlessly," a resident told Agence France-Presse (AFP). "I thought it would never end."
The quake also startled people on the south of the island.
"We were in bed and it woke us up – it really went on for a long time," Limassol (Limasol) resident Carol Bailey, a 61-year-old French teacher, told AFP.
She said friends closer to Paphos (Baf) on the west coast told her it shook their building and set the lights swinging, while the inside of their fireplace "was making a noise like a horror film."
There was, however, a low possibility of casualties and damage from the quake, the USGS said in a preliminary assessment.
The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre put the earthquake's magnitude at 6.5 at a depth of 51 kilometers.
Cyprus lies in a secondary earthquake-prone zone, but tremors of such magnitude are uncommon.
The biggest in recent years was a magnitude 6.8 earthquake in 1996, which killed two people in Paphos.
In 1953, a 6.3 magnitude quake killed 40 people and destroyed hundreds of homes, mostly in the Paphos region.
