At 21:54 on 2 August, Skopje shook. Briefly, but enough to be felt. The Seismological Observatory at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics reported an earthquake with a local magnitude of 2.5 on the Richter scale, with its epicentre in the Skopje epicentral zone.

Residents of Skopje and the surrounding area felt it at an intensity of III to IV on the European Macroseismic Scale. No injuries and no material damage were reported.

Magnitude and intensity are not the same - and that is where the panic starts

Two numbers in the same text are easily confused. Magnitude describes the energy of the earthquake itself and is a single figure for the entire event. Intensity shows how the tremor was felt at a given location and what effects it produced - so it varies across different parts of the city.

That is why "2.5" and "III to IV" are not contradictory. This was a weak earthquake that some people felt as a brief sway, a vibration or a sound.

According to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre, the tremor occurred at 21:53, with its epicentre roughly 11 kilometres northeast of Skopje at a depth of 15 kilometres, in the border region between Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia. The one-minute discrepancy and the difference in location between the two institutions is normal - preliminary locations get corrected.

In Skopje, the word "earthquake" is never just a news item

In another city, a magnitude 2.5 tremor would stay a short evening bulletin. Not here. The city's collective memory returns to 26 July 1963 every time something shakes - even though there is no comparison between that catastrophe and tonight's weak tremor, not in force, not in consequences, not in scale.

It is precisely that sensitivity that fills the first minutes after any tremor with phone calls, messages and checks on whether other people felt it too. That is an understandable reaction. What is problematic is what fills the vacuum in the meantime - unverified posts, mistranslated figures and headlines that confuse magnitude with intensity.

The observatory published the information, and it is accurate. The responsible institution continues monitoring seismic activity. With natural phenomena, accuracy beats panic - and that is the one thing each of us can control the next time the glasses rattle in the cabinet.