Fear in Alicudi and Filicudi, many calls to the fire brigade switchboards in Messina , in some municipalities of the province and even in Palermo , due to a strong earthquake of magnitude 4.8 , recorded at a depth of 17 km, at 16.19 by the INGV operations room in Catania a little to the south of the two Aeolian islands.

No damage was recorded to buildings, even after eight more tremors followed for over an hour, always with their epicenter in the same area at the bottom of the sea.

After the main one, the National Institute of Volcanology recorded earthquakes of magnitude between 2.5 and 3.4 at a depth ranging from 18 to 4 km from 16:40 to 18:08. The president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Carlo Doglioni, specified that these earthquakes are due to the convergence movement between the northern part of Sicily and the southern part of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

"The affected area is located in a strip that runs from east to west, roughly from Ustica to the Aeolian Islands, which is notoriously an area in which the northern part of Sicily is converging with the southern part of the Tyrrhenian Sea, generating compressional earthquakes," Doglioni said. "In Alicudi - says the mayor's delegate Italo Palermo - when the shock occurred, half the population was at the port because the hydrofoil had arrived, so people didn't feel anything."

Vibrations in homes (some people noticed ceiling lamps moving) were felt in Messina and in some municipalities on the Tyrrhenian coast of Messina. The tremor was also felt in Palermo, especially on the upper floors of buildings, where the head of regional civil protection Salvo Cocina followed the events in contact with the operations room.

(Unioneonline/vl)