Macedonia Experts Calm Fears of Volcanic Eruption

As ground around the lakeside resort of Ohrid continues to shake from time to time, scaring residents and tourists alike, experts have dismissed fears that the quakes could reactivate a long extinct volcano believed to have existed in the area millions of years ago.

On Monday, some media came out with bombastic headlines claiming that the series of quakes had "reactivated the only living volcano in the Balkans".

The area they spoke of is the site known as Duvalo, near the village of Kosel, in the Ohrid basin, which is famous for its rare geo-thermal phenomenon: sulphuric gasses emitting from the ground.

The reports alleged that the earthquakes have caused new cracks in the ground there and increased emission of gasses in this area, which might lead to a volcanic eruption.

Seismologists and geologists dismissed the claims as mere sensationalism.

The head of the Skopje-based Institute for Earthquake Engineering, IZIIS, Mihail Garevski, said the earthquakes are neither a cause nor a possible consequence of a supposed volcanic activity.

"People should know that in Macedonia and in the Balkans there are no active volcanoes, so things should not get confused," Garevski said.

The Institute of Geography at Skopje state university came out with a similar dismissal.

"We are talking about a crack in the deeper layers of the earth through which gasses come to the surface. It is true that this is a result of volcanic activity that happened on today's Macedonian territory, over 5 million years ago, but from a scientific standpoint this is not a volcano but a common crack," the Geography Institute at the university told media.

'Swarm' of earthquakes may have occurred:

Since...