The tremor

At 19:46 local time (17:46 GMT) on Friday, 31 July, a magnitude 4.7 earthquake struck at a depth of 3 kilometres with its epicentre between the towns of Pozzuoli and Quarto in the Campi Flegrei caldera west of Naples. The shaking was felt across Naples, on the island of Ischia and as far south as the Sorrento peninsula. The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) said the tremor was among the most powerful ever recorded in the Campi Flegrei zone. A magnitude 3.8 aftershock followed within minutes, and panicked residents poured into the streets. Many spent the night outdoors, afraid of further tremors.

Injuries and damage

By Saturday morning, Italy's Civil Protection confirmed 21 people had been injured, two of them in critical condition under red code, and a third under orange code. The worst-hit locality was Pozzuoli, where a section of a small apartment block collapsed and chunks of masonry crushed several parked cars. Two uninhabited buildings collapsed completely, and rockfalls and minor landslides were reported across the Flegrean area. In Bacoli, mayor Josi Gerardo Della Ragione said inspections found no homes declared unfit to live in, but walls and plaster had fallen from building facades. Firefighters carried out technical checks through the night, documenting cracks, fallen stones and plaster debris. An 80-year-old bedridden man was evacuated from a building on Via Fasano in Pozzuoli after the staircase was severely damaged; rescuers used a ladder truck and special equipment to bring him to safety. The fire service initially received no requests for emergency rescues but damage reports came in from surrounding districts.

“Several small landslides and collapses occurred in the Campi Flegrei area. Reception centres are operational in Naples and Pozzuoli to assist the population.”

Transport and utilities

Immediately after the quake, local train services and the Naples metro were preventively suspended. A fallen wall blocked the Circumflegrea railway line, and the harbour master closed the Pozzuoli dock for structural inspections along the waterfront. A high-tension power pole collapsed, cutting electricity to roughly 100,000 consumers. Power was restored to almost all overnight, but around 900 customers in the Astroni-Agnano district remained without supply as of Saturday morning.

“No homes have been found unfit for habitation. No residents were evacuated. We had no injuries.”

Seismic aftermath and historical echoes

Seismographs recorded about 60 aftershocks through the night, most of low intensity. The strongest, magnitude 3.1, struck at 05:47 Saturday, followed two minutes later by a 3.0, according to INGV; both were felt in Pozzuoli, Bacoli and several Naples neighbourhoods. Campi Flegrei, a densely populated supervolcano that contains Europe's largest volcanic crater, has been experiencing increasingly frequent seismic activity, prompting the Italian government to intensify monitoring. More than 250 people were evacuated from their homes. The tremor revived memories of two devastating past quakes: the 1980 Irpinia earthquake (magnitude 6.9, about 2,700 dead) and the 2016 central Italy quakes that killed roughly 300 people. In the early 1980s, a major seismic crisis in the same caldera forced thousands to abandon their homes.