An earthquake with 3.5 magnitude on the Richter scale hit  35 kilometres east of the city of Hurghada on the Red Sea on Thursday, Egypt's National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIA) said in a statement.

Head of the NRIA Gad El-Kady said that the centre of the Egyptian national seismological network (ENSN) in Aswan, affiliated to the NRIA, detected the earthquake in the Red Sea region at 3:54am on Thursday..

El-Kady indicated that the NRIA had not received any reports of any losses or injuries.