“Three more aftershocks have been felt to date. The first with a magnitude of 1.2, the second 1.1, and the third 0.9. If it is justified again, we will issue new warnings and statements”, said the national emergency and civil protection commander, André Fernandes, in a briefing at 08:00.

According to André Fernandes, there was a spike in calls from the population to the national command, regional and sub-regional commands and fire brigades, and recommendations were given.

The national commander also said that this earthquake does not meet the criteria for activating special plans for this type of event.

“Plans are only activated from 6.1, the earthquake was 5.3”, he said.

André Fernandes explained that although the earthquake had its epicentre at sea, and “there was no fear” of a tsunami.

“There is only a tsunami warning from 6.0 [intensity] on the Richter scale”, he explained, clarifying that since the earthquake was 5.3 “there was no need for that”.

When asked by journalists about the lack of information on the ANEPC website and on the organisation’s social media, the president of ANEPC, Duarte Costa, said that at 6:00 a.m. “a first post was made on social media with a link” to the ANEPC page.

“From six in the morning onwards we are informing everyone, not only as a result of what happened but also of the attitudes”, stated Duarte Costa.

“We then decided to reiterate this situation, with a separate post, just for self-protection measures, and this from six to six-thirty in the morning”, he added.

According to the official, this was the “normal system” of communication so that, in a situation like today’s, the population could “remain calm”, adding that Civil Protection chose to prioritise the dissemination of information through the social network Facebook because that is where the “largest occurrence of people” is recorded.

At the press conference, the Secretary of State for Civil Protection, Paulo Simões Ribeiro, reiterated that the Government is monitoring the situation “calmly and serenely” and appealed for everyone to remain calm and for the population to follow the authorities’ recommendations on this matter.