A new earthquake of magnitude 4.4 in
the Campi Flegrei volcanic caldera rocked the Naples area
overnight, causing scared people to take to the streets,
generating some damage and injuring one person.
The quake, which struck at 1.25 am on Thursday, was the biggest
in the area for 40 years along with one of the same magnitude
that hit it in May last year.
Firefighters in the town of Bagnoli pulled a person out of the
rubble after the quake caused a ceiling to collapse. The person
was not badly hurt.
Some people in the same town had to climb out of windows to get
out of their homes due to damage caused by the quake.
Cars were hit by falling debris and cracks appeared in some
buildings.
Premier Giorgia Meloni is constantly monitoring the situation in
close contact with Cabinet Secretary Alfredo Mantovano, Civil
Protection Minister Nello Musumeci, and with the Head of the
Civil Protection Department, Fabio Ciciliano, the premier's
office said on Thursday.
The Campi Flegrei area, also known the Phlegrean Fields in
English, is currently being affected by bradyseism, or ground
uplift, and there have been a series of earthquakes over the
last year.
"'Recently, the rate at which the ground is rising has tripled,
from 1 to 3 centimetres per month,' Francesca Bianco, director
of the volcanoes department of the National Institute of
Geophysics and Volcanology, told ANSA.
"What happened last night is not unexpected: there is a further
intensification of the bradyseismic crisis compared to 2023, but
there is no evidence of shallow magma, which would be a typical
sign of an (upcoming) eruption".
Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci has appointed a special
commissioner for the Campi Flegrei area to take care of
risk-prevention measures.
The minister has complained about how urban development had been
allowed in the volcanic area over the decades.
Naples Mayor Gaetano Manfredi said the latest quake was "an
important stress test for the building heritage in this part of
the city.
"The fact that there is no structural damage means that there is
good seismic capacity," he continued at the end of a meeting of
on the situation in the prefect's office.
"It is obvious that now we have to continue this work on this
vulnerability.
"We have to continue with the controls because the only answer
to living with bradyseism is to have safe structures and we have
to work on that".
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