Quakes recorded in Malta

An earthquake that rocked southern Italy yesterday and several others that hit eastern Sicily over the past few days have been recorded on the Wied Dalam seismograph at Birzebbuga.

Yesterday's quake, measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale, struck at 11.40 a.m. and is considered in Italy to be the biggest earthquake to hit the country for several years.

Seven people, including five children, were killed and many others trapped when a nursery school collapsed in San Giuliano di Puglia.

Seismologists had already been monitoring the region after this week's eruption of Mount Etna.

A quake also hit Mount Etna on Tuesday. It measured 3.7 on the Richter scale.

"Yesterday's earthquake is not related to the earthquake sequence affecting Sicily. None of these events presented any threat to the Maltese islands," said seismologist Pauline Galea, from the Physics Department of the University of Malta.

She said the local stations were closely monitoring the earthquakes and the data was continuously being used by Italian seismologists in a bid to provide them with more information on their nature.

"The data we are gathering from our station is being used by the National Geophysics Institute in Rome to help them locate the epicentre of the earthquake. Our data also helps them in their mechanism analysis procedure to obtain a better understanding of the seismic activity going on."

Dr Galea said that although the strong earthquake that hit southern Italy yesterday was recorded in Malta, it was not physically felt.

"It so happened that its epicentre was in Campobasso, which is on high ground."