Two seismic swarms on the same day: Tuscany and Gargano shaken within hours

On Wednesday, August 12, the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology recorded two separate earthquakes in two different areas of the country, unrelated to each other but occurring within the same span of hours.

At 5:33 am, a magnitude 2.9 event struck the Gargano coast, in the province of Foggia, with an epicenter at a depth of 10 kilometers. The affected area includes the municipalities of San Nicandro Garganico, Lesina, Isole Tremiti and Poggio Imperiale, within a radius of 20 kilometers from the epicenter. With this quake, the number of seismic events of magnitude 2 or higher recorded in the province of Foggia since the beginning of the year rises to 37, a figure indicating constant, though limited, seismic activity in the area.

At 10:57 am, the day’s most significant quake struck the northern Tuscan coast: magnitude 3.7, hypocenter at a depth of 9 kilometers, distinctly felt in Livorno, Pisa, Lucca and Massa Carrara. It is the second event felt by the population in the area in just over a week, following the magnitude 4.3 quake of August 4, with its epicenter in the San Rossore park.

The President of the Tuscany Region, Eugenio Giani, announced that no damage to property or persons has been reported, noting that checks have nonetheless been launched with the Civil Protection department. “There is no damage,” Giani stated.

For both events, the news currently comes from a single source, the data released by the Ingv; no further independent confirmation is available. Based on the information available, the two quakes remain separate and unrelated events: the geographical distance between the Tuscan Tyrrhenian coast and Gargano rules out a direct connection between the two seismic areas, both of which are in any case monitored by the national detection network.

For Tuscany, this is the second episode felt by the population in nine days, a factor that regional authorities are following with ongoing checks, with no structural damage reported at this time.