On the day of Sunday 14 April 2024 an earthquake swarm hit the area of Phlegraean Fields with approx 70 earthquake tremors. The swarm started at 9:35 and whose maximum magnitude reached was equal to 3.7 at 9.44am with an earthquake at a depth of 2.5km. Two other major tremors occurred at 9:46 with magnitude 3.1 and at 10:01 with magnitude 3.0. The epicenters of all three earthquakes were in the area of Solfatara and they were felt throughout the Phlegraean area and also in Naples. Although the earthquakes were clearly felt throughout the area, no particular damage was recorded even if there was a bit of fear especially in the area of Pozzuoli, where windows and furniture shook and hundreds of people poured into the street. As communicated by INGV, the swarm ended yesterday evening.
To get a clearer idea of what happened, let’s take the following image as a reference:
The various circles represent the tremors that hit the area north-east of Pozzuoli on April 14th. There dimension of the circle, as also indicated by the legend, is proportional to the magnitude, while the color refers to the time of day. As we can see, almost all the circles are green, indicating that they have occurred before 10:00 in the morning.
But what gave rise to all these shocks? As often happens in the Phlegraean area, these earthquakes are linked to bradyseism, that is, a periodic rise and fall of the ground level caused by volcanic activities underground. Specifically, during the lifting phase numerous earthquakes can occur and when this happens – as from 2005 to today – we speak of bradyseismic crisis.
Attention: the fact that there have been so many tremors does not mean that we need to worry. In fact the same INGV signals that there are no other anomalies that could suggest an imminent eruption.
For further information, here is a video on the bradyseism situation in the Campi Flegrei today:
Tags: Earthquakes Campi Flegrei Naples INGV confirms seismic swarm
