The earthquake’s epicentre was about 35km off the coast of Italy
(Picture: Stock picture/PA Archive)An earthquake has shaken Italy’s northeastern coast, causing some cracks in buildings and prompting at least one health clinic to evacuate.
The moderate magnitude 5.7 quake struck off Italy’s Adriatic coast shortly after 7am local time on Wednesday (6am in the UK), and was felt as far away as Rome - more than 300km away on the other side of the country - and in the northern regions of Veneto, Friuli and Trentino.
Initial reports said it caused no serious damage, but schools in Pesaro and other nearby cities were closed, and rail traffic passing through Pesaro along the Adriatic coast was suspended.
Stazione di Pesaro.#Terremoto pic.twitter.com/X6PkxHG8uD
— UbaldoLorenzo (@UbaldoLorenzo) November 9, 2022
Patients from Ancona’s private Villa Igea clinic were also reportedly evacuated as a precaution.
Photographs on social media showed fallen plaster at Pesaro station in the wake of the earthquake, while some users shared videos of the inside of their homes trembling.
“No injuries at the moment,” a spokesman for Italy’s Civil Protection told Reuters, as the agency tweeted that checks on the ground were continuing.
The quake’s epicentre was at 35 kilometres offshore from Pesaro, a seaside city in the eastern Marche region, at a depth of 7 kilometres, the Italian Geophysics and Volcanology Institute (INGV) said.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said she was “in constant contact” with Civil Protection authorities and the head of the Marche region to follow developments.
Minor tremors and earthquakes are a regular occurrence in Italy, as many parts of the contry lie on a major seismic fault line.
Italy’s Civil Protection has a website dedicated to earthquake ... says “thousands of earthquakes occur every year, and the majority of them with low energy”.
It adds that in the last century, “almost 300 of them with a magnitude higher than 5.5 had destructive effects and one every 10 years has catastrophic effects, with an energy comparable to the L’Aquila earthquake of 2009”.
