The 4.0 magnitude earthquake on Monday night occurred in the area of the so-called “Phlegrean Fields”. The area has been on yellow alert for eleven years.
Another earthquake shook the region around Naples. The 4.0 magnitude earthquake occurred on Monday night in the so-called Phlegrean Fields. This is a huge active volcanic region west of Vesuvius. Respected volcanologist Giuseppe Di Natale, a leading expert on bradysism, the rise and fall of the land in this volcanic area, is concerned.
Monday night’s earthquake occurred in the area of the so-called “Phlegrean Fields”, an area with high volcanic activity. Researchers have repeatedly warned about this phenomenon. The area has been on yellow alert for eleven years, urging caution. “The population’s fear is enormous. They are afraid of earthquakes, but many residents think that the volcano’s eruption is impossible and simply tune out this idea,” said Di Natale, who has been researching the phenomenon of volcanoes and “bradyism” for 40 years. The word comes from Greek and means “slow movement of the earth”.
“I don’t know the resistance limit”
“Increasing ground elevation indicates increasing internal pressure beneath the earth, which also leads to increasingly strong and frequent earthquakes. It is clear that if this pressure continues to increase, sooner or later the rocks on the surface will no longer be able to support it and an eruption will occur. Unfortunately, we currently do not know the resistance limit of the rocks in the first three kilometers of depth, so we have no idea how high the risk of an eruption could be”, explains Di Natale.
The volcanologist complains that most buildings in the Naples area do not meet the most modern anti-seismic standards. “Dilapidated buildings could suffer severe damage or even collapse in the event of a stronger earthquake,” Di Natale said.
Until now, researchers have attributed the ups and downs of “Campi Flegrei” to underground magma movements. When magma rises from the deepest layers of the Earth’s interior below Pozzuoli, 15 kilometers from Naples, the entire area begins to rise. As soon as the magma sinks again, the bulging at the Earth’s surface decreases – and the Phlegrean fields also sink again.
Internal pressure is stronger than it has been since 1538
In 1983, there was great excitement in Pozzuoli when the land rose again by more than a meter. The new situation lasted several months. It was accompanied by earthquakes that caused significant damage to the masonry of the old houses in the port area. More than 30,000 people had to abandon their homes for several weeks until the land calmed down again. “Today the ground level is higher than it has ever been in recent centuries. This means that the internal pressure is stronger than since the last volcanic eruption in 1538”, warns Di Natale.
Could the new uplift lead to a point where the rock layers can no longer withstand the forces of expansion? Experts do not rule this out. Italian civil defense is working on a large-scale evacuation plan for the densely populated region. In the most extreme case, this envisages the evacuation of 1.3 million people in the entire area around Naples, the largest metropolis in southern Italy, within 72 hours. The evacuation would be coordinated by the army and civil defense. In three days, an entire region was to leave the region by train, bus and car.