The Italian city of Siena, faced with a series of low intensity earthquakes on Wednesday night, decided as a precaution to close schools, universities and museums in this famous tourist destination in Tuscany this Thursday.
According to the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), around twenty tremors of magnitude between 2 and 2.8 occurred overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, after a major tremor of magnitude 3.5 on Wednesday shortly before 22:00 hours.
“The municipal buildings are being checked, but at this stage no danger has been detected,” the municipality said in a statement on Thursday.
It also specifies that the local authorities plan to “close, after schools, also sports facilities, gyms and all municipal offices.”
Italy is exposed to seismic risks
Siena, located in southern Tuscany, is famous for its artistic heritage and for the Palio, a spectacular horse race that pits the city’s neighborhoods against each other twice a year, on July 2 and August 16. Its historic center is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Italy, straddling the Eurasian plate and the African plate that pushes it towards the Balkans to the north, is exposed to earthquakes in a large part of its territory. In 2009, an earthquake killed more than 300 people in the city of L’Aquila and its region, in the center of the peninsula. The figure was similar for the Amatrice earthquake, also in the center, in 2016.
Source: BFM TV
