A magnitude 4.2 earthquake struck Italy’s Phlegraean Fields volcanic region near Naples on Wednesday morning without causing injuries or damage, civil defense said.
The epicenter of the earthquake, which struck at 3:35 a.m. (1:35 a.m. GMT), was at a depth of about 3 km and the quake was felt by residents of the region, particularly in several neighborhoods of Naples.
Less well-known than Mount Vesuvius, which wiped Pompeii from the map almost two millennia ago, is the Phlegraean Fields volcano, which erupted for the last time in 1538, exposing half a million residents to a flood of lava.
The region was the site of a seismic swarm – a series of low-magnitude tremors – for several days and had already experienced another similar earthquake earlier this month.
Josi Gerardo Della Ragione, mayor of Bacoli, a coastal town near Naples, said it was the “strongest in this long series of earthquakes … and one of the longest.”
However, according to the Italian Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), this peak of activity could be caused by gas emissions rather than magma, making “the likelihood of an eruption relatively low.”