Dogs barking, vibrating glass panels and shaking wardrobes have just woken up people all over the island up after a bigger and closer earthquake was just recorded off the coast of Malta.

Yesterday evening, a 3.3 magnitude earthquake was recorded some 20 kilometres south of Malta at 8.20pm.

Just after 3am, though, a 4.5 magnitude earthquake was registered even closer to Malta.

This was confirmed by the Seismic Monitoring & Research Group at the University of Malta’s Department of Geosciences, which confirmed the close earthquake happening at 3.00am.

Soon enough, from popular Facebook meme groups like Pastizziposting to message threads all over, people reported being woken up in the dead of the night, either because of the strong tremor itself, or because they heard dogs barking just before the tremor started.

In other cases, people said they woke up to wardrobes vibrating or showers’ glass planels moving back and forth.

Two other, smaller earthquakes – with magnitudes 1.8 and 2.9 – were recorded close to today’s epicentre a couple of days ago, on the 25th and 27th September respectively.

Were you woken up by the tremor? Let us know in the comments