Campi Flegrei, theft of batteries and damage to sensors and earthquake surveillance units

OfRoberto Russo

Di Vito, director of the Vesuvian Observatory: «The boats also damage the surveillance stations at sea, more attention is needed»

Theft of station batteries earthquake detection and damage to some sensors placed at sea, caused by vessel maneuvers. It happens in Phlegraean Fields, where Ingv has a dense seismic and volcanic monitoring network with very complex and delicate instruments which also need to be monitored against the action of vandals. The one to report the situation director of the Vesuvian Observatory, Mauro Antonio Di Vito, who spoke about it during a hearing before the municipal civil protection commission, chaired by councilor Nino Simeone. THEThe director of the Observatory drew the attention of the authorities mainly to the installations of the control units at sea: with the start of the bathing season and the increase in boat traffic along the Phlegraean coast, there is the risk that some instruments placed in the water could be damaged by boat owners when dropping anchor. In fact, damage has already occurred in the past.

The stunt of some students

Di Vito also stigmatized another phenomenon: that of the theft of batteries which occurred in ground-based control units, some of which are not manned. The network of permanent GPS stations operating in the Naples Campi Flegrei area is made up of 31 terrestrial and marine sites, 10 stations of the tiltmetric network, 4 of the marine network, 350 “cornerstones” of the precision altimetric network, 34 gravimetric stations. In short, dozens of points manned by equally sophisticated equipment. The latest theft in chronological order – confirmed by the press office of the Vesuvian Observatory – was a stunt, probably carried out by some students, which took place in a school in theFlegrean area where some engineering technicians they were working to assemble one of the devices placed to increase surveillance of the effects of earthquakes on buildings. In this case the batteries were found and the instrumentation put into operation regularly.

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