A magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck at 8:06am on Tuesday about 100 km south of Malta, the Seismic Monitoring and Research Group at the University of Malta said.

"This earthquake continues with the series of earthquakes we had earlier this year. The seismic activity is ongoing and may last several weeks or months," it said.

23 tremors were felt around Malta earlier this year but seismologists said at the time that was not uncommon.

Between September and November 2020, over 100 earthquakes of similar ‘intensity’ were recorded only 23km south of Malta. Most of them were not felt in Malta.

The intensity felt from an earthquake relies on multiple factors including distance from the earthquake’s epicenter and its magnitude.