One of the most powerful earthquakes to hit Naples in decades has rocked the Italian city and surrounding region ‘like a bomb’, sending people running into the streets.
Local residents reported hearing a ‘roar’ and feeling a ‘strong tremor’ as the 4.6-magnitude quake struck at around 9.15am.
The epicentre of the earthquake was just off the coast of the highly active Phlegraean Fields, a volcanic caldera west of the city, at a depth of 1.5 miles.
Multiple people living nearby in the seaside town of Bagnoli said it ‘seemed like a bomb’ had gone off when the quake hit.
It measured the same magnitude as an earthquake recorded in the region on March 13, the strongest to hit the region in 40 years.
‘We rocked a lot… I’m still shaking,’ one woman, living in the Vomero district of the city, told La Repubblica.
Another local, who lives in the western Fuorigrotta suburb, described the experience as ‘terrifying’.
Rail traffic has been temporarily suspended in the city, which is home to more than 900,000 people.
The tremors are part of a seismic swarm, with observers detecting a dozen since just before 9 o’clock this morning.
The Vesuvius Observatory also recorded a series of small earthquakes overnight, each no greater than magnitude-1.
The most violent earthquake to hit the southern Italian city in recent times – a 6.9-magnitude earthquake in November 1980 – claimed 2,734 lives.
The devastating quake also injured more than 8,800 people and laid waste to more than 300 municipalities.