As of: January 30, 2024, 6:45 a.m
By: Johannes Welte
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The Solfatara volcanic crater in the Phlegraean Fields is steaming.
© IMAGO/xgiumarx
With a new series of earthquakes, the supervolcano near Naples is once again causing fear among the population.
As a precautionary measure, the volcano warning center is being withdrawn from the danger area.
Pozzuoli - The Phlegraean Fields near the Italian port city of Pozzuoli in the west of Naples are the most dangerous volcanic zone in Europe.
It is a supervolcano - a huge crater with a diameter of 16 kilometers that contains dozens of smaller volcanic craters.
For months, series of earthquakes have raised fears of a new supervolcano eruption that could be as devastating as the major eruptions during the ice ages.
About 39,280 years ago, the streams of fire wiped out all life within a radius of a good 100 kilometers.
After a continuous earthquake, calm appeared to have returned to the supervolcano in Italy
Last year, a series of earthquakes caused alarm that the region had not experienced for a long time: over 1,000 shocks were counted in the months of August and September.
On September 27th, the strongest earthquake since the 1980s with a magnitude of 4.2 shook people awake.
They ran into the street, concrete pieces fell from some facades, some slept in their cars.
The nighttime earthquake drove the citizens of Pozzuoli into the streets.
© Enzo Buono/Facebook
The earthquakes are the result of a powerful uplift: the entire region around Pozzuoli rose by 10 to 15 millimeters per month.
From November onwards the situation calmed down again, and in mid-December scientists declared the phenomenon of bradyseismos, as the ground uplift is called in technical jargon, to be over.
There were entire days without tremors.
Only an uplift of three millimeters was recorded for the entire month.
The number of tremors has tripled from week to week in Italy - “We heard thunder”
But since mid-January the fear has returned: the earth is shaking again and more and more often.
In the week from January 15th to 21st, 24 earthquakes were recorded, “The tremors have tripled from week to week and that is not a good sign,” writes the
Corriere de La Sera
.
On January 21st, the strongest earthquake so far this year was recorded with a magnitude of 2.6.
This time the epicenter was in the Bay of Pozzuoli.
Locals who were traveling on a ferry to Ischia heard the quake: “I was on the ferry that left Pozzuoli for Ischia at 1:30 p.m.
We were just above the epicenter when we heard thunder.
But we didn’t feel anything because we were on the water,” writes a user on Facebook.
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The ground also rises faster again.
The national earthquake and volcano warning service INGV records that the rate of uplift is once again ten millimeters per month.
Since January 2011, the ground level in Pozzuoli has risen by a total of 1.15 meters.
Since January 2023 alone, the earth has risen by 18.5 centimeters.
The ground is now 26.5 centimeters higher than during the last bradyseismic crisis, when Pozzuoli was evacuated after a series of earthquakes and a threatened eruption.
How far has the crisis progressed now?
A video from locals shows steam coming out of a crevice on the bank near Pozzuoli.
The spot was under water a few months ago, but now it is on the edge.
Scientists are debating whether the quakes are simply due to water heated by magma at great depths or whether lava is gradually approaching the Earth's surface.
In addition to violent earthquakes, both can also lead to explosive eruptions.
However, the national INGV institute draws its conclusions and withdraws the Vesuvius Observatory, which is responsible for the earthquake and volcano warning service on Vesuvius, the Phlegraean Fields and the island of Ischia.
The current location of the institute is in the west of Naples in the Fuorigrotta district.
It is in the “Red Zone” - the area that would be directly threatened by an eruption of the Phlegraean Fields and would be evacuated in an emergency.
The INGV has recently published a tender looking for a new property outside the danger area.
Scientists are moving their institute away from the danger zone in Naples
Carlo Doglioni, President of the INGV, explains on
vesuviolive.it
: “In Naples the red zone is so large that it is difficult to find a place that would not have an impact in the event of an eruption of the Phlegraean Fields.” This makes the search What makes it more difficult is that the east of Naples is in the red and yellow danger zone of the Vesuvius volcano.
According to Doglioni, the search for a location also has economic and logistical reasons.
INGV scientists monitor the screens in the Vesuvius Observatory.
© IMAGO/FABIO SASSO
Since the Vesuvius Observatory would coordinate the evacuation of Pozzuoli and the surrounding area in the event of an eruption or a violent earthquake, this would be impossible if the building itself were affected by the forces of nature.
Doglioni: “It is clear that the choice must be a building in an area far from volcanic risk, because we should have an efficient structure for decades or centuries, even if we move from one level of monitoring to the next” .
Already in 2012, the alert level for the Phlegraean Fields was upgraded from green to yellow.
The eruption of a volcano in Grindavik, Iceland, recently made headlines.
Another eruption of Marapi in Indonesia claimed several lives.
Mount Etna in Sicily also provided a nighttime spectacle.