Yesterday, Wednesday 12 June at 11.03pma magnitude earthquake 3.5 hit the coasts off the coast of Emilia-Romagna, especially in the province of Rimini, with an epicenter in the sea 3 km away from the municipality of Riccione and from that of Misano Adriatico. The shock was rather superficial, with a hypocenter just 6km, and for this very reason many people on social media – including many tourists – said they felt it intensely, complete with chandeliers swaying especially on the upper floors. The shock was felt on the Romagna coast but also in Cesenato Pesaro and in the Romagna and Marche hinterland. Fortunately they were not registered neither damage nor victims.
As we can see from the image above, thearea hit by earthquake – indicated with a yellow pin – is located in an area full of fault systems, represented in orange. The one southwest of the epicenter, for example, is reported in the DISS catalog as “Northern Apennines Arc” while the one to the north-east like “Rimini offshore“. Precisely for this reason the area in question is not new to earthquakes: in the following image the epicenter of today’s earthquake is shown with a star while with yellow squares earthquakes present within the Parametric catalog of Italian earthquakes.
As anticipated, the earthquake was distinctly felt throughout the area, although fortunately no particular damage was reported: this is also confirmed by the value of the shock on the Scala Mercalli (MCS), where a maximum value is recorded between III and IV degree. This corresponds to aoscillation of suspended objects and a vibration distinctly felt by a large part of the population.
But why are there so many volcanoes and earthquakes in Italy? To learn more, here is a video ad hoc made on the topic:
