Tuscany was rocked by a 5.2 magnitude earthquake on Friday-most of northern Italy felt the tremor that pulsed from Bologna to Florence.
No serious injuries have been reported, the civil protection agency told Yahoo! News.
"We are checking to see whether any damage has been caused," a spokesperson at civil protection told AFP, reporting that the earthquake hit with a 3.1 mile depth.
The earthquake struck around 2 kilometers away from the walled city of Fivizzano in Tuscany. Reports from the ground tell of panicked citizens rushing out of their houses and apartments onto the streets of Massa and Carrara provinces, terrified by the immense tremor emanating through their floors, shaking their walls.
According to Seismologist Marco Mucciarelli from the national experimental oceanographic and geophysics institute who spoke with Sky Italia television, the quakes felt in the city of Venice and throughout northern Italy during a similar time frame were various aftershocks strewn about the country.
"There are likely more to come," he said. He also mentioned that municipalities around the epicenter experienced "big problems with communications" which made it difficult to assess potential damages.
Witnesses said that the quake only lasted a few seconds.
Local trains in the area stopped in the wake of the quake, but speed trains from Milan to Bologna continued running, Italy's rail service reported.
In the northern city of Reggio Emilia, Equal Opportunities Minister Josepha Idem was in the middle of a speech in the town hall when the earthquake rolled in. The building was evacuated, and Idem's address was cut short.
