It had an epicenter located Struma River Valley between the then villages Kresna and Krupnik.

In Oshtava, Stara Kresna, Breznitsa, Moravska, Mechkul, and Sarbinovo, wood homes remained intact.

The local newspaper Dnevnik reported the destruction of six mosques, barracks, and a gunpowder warehouse.

A mosque, three minarets, the barracks, and a hospital was damaged or destroyed, killing two and leaving four wounded.

Significant loss of life was reported in Kocani and Pehcevo, where 14 and 38 deaths were recorded.

The mainshock likely ruptured along the fault which dips 45°, and measures 20-km-long by 15-km-wide, generating a maximum slip of 2 meters.

[8] The earthquakes were previously assigned magnitudes Ms  7.5 and 7.8 respectively by Beno Gutenberg and Charles Francis Richter, but has since been reassessed to 6.8 and 7.2 in recent years.

Both the very large foreshock and mainshock were felt over an area of 1.4 million cubic kilometers, in Romania, the Aegean Sea, Turkey, Macedonia, and Serbia.

There are legends of a water cave which appeared in the Kresna Gorge shortly after the earthquakes.

According to the legends, cars, and people fell into the Struma River and were sucked into the cave by the currents and never found.