A roar, with the earth shaking for a few seconds. However, it was not an earthquake, because the INGV did not record any movement: according to what was reported in the Tuscan press, there may have been a small asteroid disintegrated once it entered the Earth’s atmosphere. In any case, the next few hours will shed light on an issue which, despite having ended without damage or injuries, has quite frightened the residents of southwestern Tuscany.
It all started this afternoon around 4.30pm, when a tremor was reported in the area of the island of Elba. But not only that, because it was felt practically along the entire southern stretch of the coast: from the province of Livorno to Grosseto (but also in Versilia) reports of citizens who felt the floor under their feet or the glass of the windows vibrating .
Everything suggested a seismic shock, so much so that even the governor Eugenio Giani had spoken of it earthquake in an initial post published on social media in which he invited the population to calm down. Except that the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology has not recorded tremors coming from Tuscany. “Shock felt on the island of Elba, felt along the entire coast. Checks underway with the regional system, at the moment there are no injuries or damage – the president of the Tuscany Region then wrote on his Facebook page, making the developments known – I just heard from the Air Force which confirmed no sonic boom in the skies over Tuscany. Even the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology has not detected telluric movements. The shock, felt by many as an earthquake along the entire coast of Tuscany and in some inland areas, has no confirmation as to the type of event at the moment.” But if it wasn’t an earthquake and apparently not even a supersonic aircraftwhat caused the roar heard by tens and tens of thousands of Tuscans?
According to what was reported by the newspaper The nationit would have been a asteroid of small dimensions. This hypothesis is strengthened by the Tuscan geophysical institute-Fondazione Parsec, which cross-referenced the data with those of the Ingv and the University of Florence: at 4.29pm the seismic-acoustic station installed at the Seccheto sports field (Campo nell ‘Elba) recorded a particularly strong seismic-acoustic signal, detecting a notable amount of energy released into the atmosphere coming from the south of the island of Montecristo.
According to the data collected by Dr. Andrea Fiaschi of the Tuscan Geophysical Institute Parsec Foundation, the recorded signal had an amplitude ten times greater than previously recorded events, so much so as to saturate the infrasonic sensors. A fireball that would have entered the Earth’s atmosphere and would have disintegrated completely. But the next few hours will most likely give the definitive answer to the doubts.
