Important Takeaways:
- A 4.4-magnitude earthquake struck the volcanic area around Naples overnight, causing several light injuries, damaging buildings and sending terrified residents into the streets, officials said on Thursday.
- The quake, which was followed by several much smaller tremors, was the biggest to hit the Campi Flegrei (Phlegraean Fields) area in southern Italy for 10 months. It occurred around 1:25am at a depth of 2.5 kilometers, according to the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), and raised residents from their beds.
- Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she was constantly monitoring the situation and was in contact with the relevant officials.
- Seismic activity is nothing new in the area, which is an active caldera — the hollow left after an eruption — the largest in Europe. It stretches from the outskirts of Naples into the sea, measuring some 12 by 15km.
- But many of the 500,000 inhabitants living in the danger zone had already been spooked by a 4.4-magnitude quake in May 2024, which was the biggest for 40 years. At that time, there were no injuries or any major structural damage.
- Naples mayor Manfredi told RTL Radio that Thursday’s quake was a “particularly intense tremor”, similar to that of last year but “with an epicenter closer to the city of Naples, so it was felt more in the city”.
- A resurgence of seismic activity in the early 1980s led to a mass evacuation, which reduced the nearby city of Pozzuoli to a ghost town. Specialists, however, say a full-blown eruption in the near future remains unlikely.
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Important Takeaways:
- Seismologists, volcanologists, and officials from Naples are racing against the clock as they implement school closures, set up emergency shelters, and plan evacuation routes for residents living within the region’s Campi Flegiri area, also known as the Phlegraean Fields, after over 600 earthquakes have been recorded since Saturday, with magnitudes ranging from M2.0 to M3.9; the most and the strongest the region has seen in 40 years.
- According to INGV, “the ongoing earthquake swarm is linked to bradyseism, a geological phenomenon in which ground levels rise or fall because of underground magma or hydrothermal activity.”
- CCTV footage located within residential homes and along city streets showed the intense shaking caused by the mega earthquake swarm; the strong tremors felt in Naples city center. According to reports, structural damage and power outages have been reported throughout the area affected by the earthquake swarm since its conception, prompting officials to monitor the seismic swarm with a watchful eye.
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Important Takeaways:
- Earthquake hits volcanic crater near Naples: Strongest tremor to hit region in decades sparks panic, with buildings damaged
- The strongest earthquakes in decades were registered at a volcanic caldera near the southern Italian city of Naples on Monday night, sending panicked residents flocking into the streets.
- One 4.4-magnitude quake was registered shortly after 8pm (1800 GMT) at a depth of 1.6 miles, according to the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).
- It was preceded moments earlier by a 3.5-magnitude tremor and followed by dozens of aftershocks.
- The Campi Flegrei – or Phlegraean Fields, as the caldera is known – experienced about 150 earthquakes between 7:51pm on Monday and 12:31am on Tuesday, the INGV said in a report.
- According to the institute’s Mauro Di Vito, ‘this is the most powerful seismic swarm in the last 40 years’.
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Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.
Important Takeaways:
- Europe’s most dangerous supervolcano ‘on verge of eruption’ and may spark global winter
- An eruption could cause mass extinctions, obliterate crops, and see people living nearby evacuated – but scientists deny such an incident is “inevitable” and explain what triggers would push it to potential breaking point.
- The crust of the Campi Flegrei volcano, near Naples in southern Italy, is becoming weaker and more prone to rupturing, “making an eruption more likely”, research recently published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment said.
- If the eruption was to be similar to its largest previous one, it would launch molten rock and volcanic gases high into the stratosphere.
- This would lead to 100-feet-high (33.5 meters) tsunamis and the spread of sulfur and toxic ash that could plunge Earth into global winter for years, destroying crops and wildlife alike.
- And most at risk are the roughly 500,000 people whose homes lie near the super volcano – many of them in the coastal town of Pozzuoli
- Lead author Professor Christopher Kilburn (UCL Earth Sciences) said: “Our new study confirms that Campi Flegrei is moving closer to rupture.”
- There is an evacuation plan in place for those living near the dormant volcano. People would be moved out within three days, either by their own transport or buses, trains and boats.
- However, scientists are not saying a huge eruption of the scale capable of causing global winter is inevitable, with two conditions being necessary before that happens.
- For volcanoes to blow, gases must build up faster than they can escape, and magma also needs to be able to move rapidly through the crust where a crack has formed. Scientists cannot know for certain these conditions have been met until an eruption takes place.
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