Students Evacuated From Bagheria Schools After Strong Earthquake Rocks Palermo

Students and teachers poured out of school buildings and gathered behind the gates in Bagheria, near Palermo, after a strong earthquake struck off Sicily’s northern coast on Friday, October 23.

X user Joseph Frascati filmed the scene from a car, writing “#Bagheria… schools evacuated.” The short clip shows groups of young children, some in white school smocks, standing with adults outside a fenced school yard as parents wait in the street among parked cars and scooters.

The main quake struck at 12:19 p.m. in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) said. It first measured the quake at magnitude 5.0 before revising it to 5.5, with a depth of 9 kilometers. It was part of a swarm of more than a dozen tremors, including a 4.3 earlier that morning, and was felt across Palermo province.

The national tsunami alert center issued an orange tsunami alert for exposed coasts between Carini and Pollina, including Bagheria, as well as the Aeolian Islands. Palermo Mayor Roberto Lagalla urged people not to go out to sea and ordered the precautionary evacuation of some public buildings, saying there were no reports of injuries or damage.