Naples residents camp outdoors after overnight earthquake.

Many Italian residents have been spending the night on the streets and in their cars after an earthquake that shook buildings and sent debris flying.

The Phlegraean Fields, a vast region of ancient volcanoes encompassing a large portion of the Naples metropolitan area, experienced the strongest earthquake in recorded history. The population was alert after it matched the magnitude of another quake in the same region last May.

According to Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), there was “no evidence” that nearby Mount Vesuvius would erupt shortly.

A local church’s bell tower sustained damage, and the windscreens of multiple cars were smashed.

According to a resident who spoke to Italian TV, people in Pozzuoli were worried that the tremors of the last two years were a “different phenomenon from what has happened in the past. “

Although his town had not been damaged, Bacoli’s mayor, Josi Gerardo Della Ragione, said it had been a challenging night along the coast.

Naples residents camping outdoors.

According to her officials, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni monitored the situation closely and communicated with her colleagues. Schools in other locations were closed on Thursday to conduct building stability checks.

More than 800,000 people live in the volcanic basin, which is thought to have been formed following an eruption ten of thousands of years ago. Local officials are particularly concerned about the accelerated “bradyseism”—ground movement phases that alter the land’s surface height.

“The rate of the ground rising has trebled recently, going from 1cm to 3cm per month,” Francesca Bianco of INGV told the Ansa news agency.

On social media, Edoardo Cosenza, a civil protection councillor from Naples, stated that it was time to react when the rate of bradyseism accelerated: “We know it and we need to know it.”