Italian town of Pozzuoli hit by series of quakes as supervolcano Campi Flegrei heats up

Pozzuoli, a port town outside of Naples, is a community where people talk about terror rather than politics or football since a supervolcano triggered a wave of earthquakes.

Tens of thousands of people who live near the large volcanic area known as the Campi Flegrei, or Phlegraean Fields—named after the ancient Greek word for burning—may be forced to evacuate in large numbers, according to plans the government has been making for the past few weeks.

The area takes on a bizarre appearance when sulphurous fumes erupt from the surface, drawing large numbers of people.

The tremors, the smoke, and the smell have grown used to the residents. September saw almost a thousand earthquakes, the majority of which were small.

However, a 4.2 magnitude earthquake that struck on September 27, the most powerful jolt to shake the volcanic region in almost 40 years, raised concerns that, for the first time since the early 1980s, what scientists refer to as a "seismic crisis" might be underway.

Residents like Annamaria Scardi, a mother of two adolescents, are uneasy due to the large earthquake, which did not cause any significant structural damage and the roughly 500 lesser ones that have occurred so far in October.

"Even those small ones (quakes) make us afraid," she said. "We are worried because (we are supposed to) run away. But where do we go? Where? This is the situation. We're on edge."

Although experts do not believe that an eruption is imminent, they are worried that the ground is being raised and lowered by the geophysical activity, which might cause buildings to become unstable.

The government would issue an evacuation order if civil protection officers advised that structures were in danger of collapsing, as was discussed in the cabinet this month.