The inhabitants of West Crete – or at least the light sleepers among them – were roused at about 5.20 am this morning by an SMS from the 112 emergency service warning of an imminent earthquake. The tremor was predicted to be of 5.5 magnitude on the Richter scale and “light shaking” was likely to be experienced. The actual earthquake, when it arrived a few seconds later, was as strong as has been felt in the area for some years, and went on for a relatively long time – over five seconds.