Quake occurs off Sicily

Rome, Oct 2 (IANS/AKI) A moderate 3.7 earthquake took place off the southern Italian Sicily region's Aeolian islands, Italy's national geophysics and vulcanology institute reported on Monday.

The quake struck at 3.26 am at a depth of 297 kilometres and its epicentre was east of the volcanic island of Stromboli, 77 km from Messina, the institute said.

There were no reports of casualties or damage, according to the institute.

Monday's temblor came less than three weeks after a magnitude 2.9 undersea quake struck off the Calabrian coast early on September 12 and was followed several hours later by a magnitude 2 quake in the Sicilian province of Messina.

Earthquakes are a common occurrence in Italy, which is criss-crossed by seismically active fault lines.

A magnitude 4.0 earthquake killed at least two people, injured 39 and left 2,600 homeless on the seismically active resort island of Ischia off Naples in August. The quake came almost a year to the day after a powerful 6.2-magnitude earthquake devastated several towns in central Italy on August 24, 2016, killing 297 people and leaving several thousand homeless.

The central Italian earthquake set off a months-long series of powerful aftershocks that depopulated towns and hamlets in the area and is believed to have triggered a deadly avalanche in the central Abruzzo region in January that killed 29 people at a ski hotel.

--IANS/AKI

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