Italy had an earthquake every 12 minutes in 2017

The overwhelming majority of earthquakes were less than 3.0 magnitude, that is, they were almost imperceptible.

In 2017, Italy recorded 44.459 earthquakes, one every 12 minutes, according to data released on Monday (22) by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), the body responsible for seismic measurements in the country.

The number represents a drop of 16% compared to the 53 thousand in 2016, the year in which the sequence of tremors began in the center of the peninsula, active to this day, but it was almost triple the 15 thousand in 2015. In 2017, five earthquakes had magnitude equal to or greater than 5.0 on the Richter scale, while another 21 were between 4.0 and 4.9.

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Around 37 tremors (more than 80%) were replicas of the seismic sequence in Central Italy, which began on August 24, 2016, with the earthquake in Amatrice, which killed 299 people.

“Current data tells us that seismic activity in the central regions is decreasing, but it will take a few years to return to pre-sequence levels”, explains Concetta Nostro, seismologist at INGV. Other areas of intense activity in 2017 were Emilia-Romagna, northeast Sicily and the Gulf of Naples, mainly the island of Ischia. (ANSA)