Earthquake shakes southern Italy, no initial reports of damage

ROME (Reuters) -An earthquake of around magnitude 5.0 shook southern Italy on Thursday, monitoring agencies reported, and was felt in a wide area but there were no initial reports of serious damage.

In a post on X, the Italian fire brigade said it had not so far received any reports of damage or requests for help. The country's civil protection agency provided the same reassuring message.

The epicentre of the quake was close to the town of Cosenza in the region of Calabria and occurred at 9:43 p.m. (1943 GMT), Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV) said, giving a magnitude of 5.0.

The German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) initially put the quake as magnitude 5.3 but subsequently revised it down to 4.6.

Large parts of central and southern Italy are prone to earthquakes. An earthquake of 6.2 magnitude hit central Italy in the dead of night in August 2016, killing around 300 people and destroying much of the hilltown of Amatrice.

(Reporting by Keith Weir in London and Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru)