A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 4.5 on the Richter scale has been felt today across Bulgaria several minutes after 2 pm. The quake's epicentre has been detected at 18 km from Bulgaria's second-biggest city Plovdiv in the direction of the town of Rakovski.

"It was a moderately strong earthquake. The depth was about 20 km. It is a shallow earthquake which means that it was felt stronger. We can expect that some of the secondary tremors will be felt by people. This is an area with seismic activity", the deputy director of the National Institute of Geophysics, Geodesy and Geography with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Assoc. Prof. Petya Trifonova, told the BNR.

The BNR correspondent in Plovdiv reported that minutes after the earthquake there was fear among people as many went outside their homes, but the situation is now calm.

There are no reports of damages.