New travel advice for Brits heading to Italy after ‘strongest earthquake in 40 years’ right next to a volcano
BRITS heading to Italy have been issued with new travel advice after the country was hit by its “strongest earthquake in 40 years” right next to a volcano
The Foreign Office has updated its advice for anyone travelling to southern Italy after an area near Naples has been experiencing a rise in seismic activity this week.
Campi Flegrei (Phlegraean Fields) is a volcanic caldera, a large cauldron-like hollow which is formed after a volcanic eruption, close to Naples, Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii.
In the past few days the landscape has been rocked by a series of earthquakes.
Hundreds of residents and the inmates of a women’s prison in the seaside town of Pozzuoli were evacuated on Tuesday.
School have been closed as well.
The Italian government has earmarked £425million (€500m) for evacuations and safety measures, such as reinforcing buildings.
Campi Flegrei is an active volcanic crater, the largest of its kind in Europe.
The supervolcano last erupted in 1538.
Lately though, a build-up of magma or gases below the surface is causing a rise in seismic activity.
The surrounding area experiences what is known as bradyseism – this is where the ground rises and falls due to under-surface pressure.
While scientists say another eruption is unlikely any time soon, many of the some 500,000 people who live in the red zone directly adjacent to the Campi Flegrei say they live in constant anxiety.
The Campi Flegrei sits just over 12 miles away from Naples and residents in the southern city have felt the tremors but there has been no casualties or damage to buildings, so far.
Vesuvius and Pompeii’s archaeological park are also close to the centre of the volcanic crater.
The red zone, where residents would be evacuated if an eruption did happen, includes the towns of Pozzuoli and Bacoli as well as some suburbs of Naples, including Chiaia and Vomero.
The rest of Naples falls in the yellow zone – which are areas at risk of significant volcanic ash falls if there is an eruption.
How do volcanoes erupt?
Deep below the Earth’s crust, it is so hot that some rocks slowly melt, turning into a thick flowing substance called magma.
As it is lighter than the solid rock around it, the magma slowly rises and collects in magma chambers.
The magma then pushes through vents and fissures, up to the Earth’s surface.
Any magma that then erupts on the Earth’s surface becomes lava.
Some volcanic eruptions can be explosive while others are not.
The explosivity of an eruption is down to the composition of the magma, according to the USGS website.
If the magma is thin and runny, gases can easily escape from it, with this type of magma, it flows out of the volcano.
People are rarely in danger of a lava flow as it moves slowly enough for people to get out of the way.
However, if the magma is thick and sticky, gases are unable to escape quite so easily.
This leads to pressure building up until the gases escape violently and explode.
The magma blasts into the air and breaks apart into pieces called tephra.
Tephra can range in size from tiny particles of ash to boulders the size of a house.
These explosive volcanic eruptions can be dangerous and deadly with clouds of hot tephra blasting out of the top or side of a volcano.
Those fiery clouds then rush down the mountainside destroying almost everything in its way.
The ash erupted also falls back to Earth, if this is thick enough it can suffocate plants, animals, and humans.
As well, when hot volcanic materials mix with water or melted snow and ice, it forms a mudflow.
Mudflows have been known to bury entire communities situated near an erupting volcano.
Both Vesuvius and Pompeii lie outside the zone.
The new Foreign Office advice for anyone travelling to southern Italy says: “There are several active volcanoes in southern Italy.
“National emergency planning has been updated for Vesuvius as well as the Phlegraean fields, an area that remains active and which has experienced tremors in 2024.”
It warns travellers to follow the instructions of the local authorities in the event of an eruption.
Anyone planning a visit to either the red or yellow zones can stay updated with the latest information on the Civil Protection Agency website.
The agency’s advice on how to prepare for volcanic activity including lava falls, volcanic bombs and mudslides, in English, can be found here.
