After years of relentless tremors culminating in Friday’s record 4.7-magnitude quake, 144 evacuated families now fear their houses are beyond saving but few can afford to simply walk away.
Many of the families evacuated from their homes following Friday’s 4.7-magnitude earthquake in the Campi Flegrei volcanic caldera near Naples fear they will never be able to return to them.
Friday’s quake, the strongest recorded in the area in decades, triggered landslides and caused significant damage to properties, leaving 26 people injured. It was only the latest in a long series of tremors to hit the Campi Flegrei — also known in English as the Phlegraean Fields — over the past three years. The region is currently in the grip of bradyseism, the gradual rise and fall of the ground caused by magmatic activity beneath the surface.
144 families – 350 people – evacuated
As a result of Friday’s earthquake, 144 families, comprising around 350 people, were forced to leave their homes. For many, it isn’t the first disruption they’ve faced in recent years, but the cumulative toll of repeated tremors appears to have finally pushed some properties past the point of safe repair.
One woman, who has been sleeping in a car with her husband for the past several nights, described a sense of resignation shared by many in the area. “The houses can no longer hold up after years of earthquakes,” she said. “The truth is, we should leave. But few of us have the financial means to do so.”
Her words capture a dilemma facing much of the community: even those who recognise their homes may no longer be safe to live in often lack the resources to relocate. This leaves many residents caught between the risk of staying and the practical impossibility of leaving.
With seismic activity in Campi Flegrei continuing to intensify alongside the ongoing uplift of the caldera floor, the events of the past few days have deepened long-standing anxiety among residents about the long-term habitability of one of the most densely populated volcanic areas in the world — and about what support, if any, will be available to help displaced families rebuild, or start again elsewhere.
