A magnitude 5.1 earthquake in the Ionian Sea, just off the southern tip of Italy, shook large parts of Malta early on Saturday morning, waking many residents across the islands.

The tremor was first recorded at 5.53am by Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome. Just one second later, it was also detected by seismic instruments operated by the University of Malta's Seismic Monitoring and Research Group, which measured it as a magnitude 5 event.

People from across Malta and Gozo reported feeling the shaking, including residents in Marsascala, Mġarr, Valletta, St Julian's, Sliema, Kirkop, St Paul's Bay and Birkirkara, many of whom were woken from their sleep.

According to the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Centre, the earthquake struck at a depth of 58 kilometres and was located about 62 kilometres off the coast of Reggio Calabria in southern Italy.

Data from Italian monitoring centres indicates that this was the strongest in a recent sequence of tremors recorded in the seas off Sicily over the past week.

Earthquakes of magnitude 5 are considered moderate and are usually felt by nearly everyone in the affected area. Globally, about 1,300 earthquakes of this size occur each year. The most recent comparable event to affect Malta was in September, when a magnitude 5.2 quake off the island's southern coast was also widely felt.

Although Malta is not located on a major fault line, the seabed of the central Mediterranean lies close to the boundary between the African and Eurasian tectonic plates, making the region prone to occasional seismic activity.