Havana, January 17 (RHC/ACN)-- The ground shook in the eastern part of the island early Tuesday morning in what some described as a very strong tremor.

The Seismology Director in Santiago de Cuba, Vladimir Moreno, confirmed that a 5.5 magnitude quake had occurred at 4:08 a.m. local time on Tuesday, with its center about 80 kilometers southwest of Santiago de Cuba and  154 kilometers west of Guantanamo Bay. It struck at a shallow depth of 11 kilometers.

No human victims or property damage were reported. The tremor came exactly one year after a string of tremors shook eastern Cuba.

At Uvero, a community in Guama municipality, just six kilometers from the tremor epicenter, the locals said that it was something they had never experienced previously.

Erodis Diaz, a security guard at a school complex told the Cuban News Agency he felt the ground move under him, as dogs began to bark, and power went off. In the Santiago de Cuba Rajayoga community, neighbors took to the streets as alarms began to sound.

Eastern Cuba has been going through unusual seismological activity since January 17, 2016, when a cluster of tremors shook the region, although no associated victims or property damage have been reported.

That region of Cuba regularly experiences small earthquakes but strong tremors are unusual. In May 1992, 40 people were injured and more than 800 buildings were damaged when a more powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake occurred off Cuba's southeastern coast.