The string of earthquakes that hit central Italy over the past two months has sparked fears that the country's capital may be at risk of a "big one" herself.

The series of tremors, all followed by powerful aftershocks, proved the final straw for a number of important architectural landmarks, including the Abbey of Sant-Eutizio in Umbria, and damaged several churches and buildings in the heart of Rome, including the Colosseum

Whilst scientists say there is no risk that Rome will be hit by a "big one", something different may be threatening the Eternal City: a dormant volcano.

Situated on Rome's doorstep, the volcano is showing signs of activity which, combined with the seismic history of the area, would indicate it is slowly reactivating, an international team of scientist said.

While in geological times the eruption would be imminent, it's far away on a human scale, about a thousand years, and there isn't currently any cause for worry.

Chambers located between 5km and 10km under the residential areas of Ariccia, Castel Gandolfo, Albano and other "Roman castles" are filling up with magma and the ground is rising 2-3mm per year, the scientists said in the study, published on Geophysical Research Letters in July.

In the study, the team, from the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV), La Sapienza University, Cnr e Madison University, also reconstructed the history of the  600,000 years of the Alban Hills, located 20km southeast of the Italian capital, and have found the cyclicality of the eruptions would fit with the timeline.

Scientists say the long pauses between activity are the main cause for worry. "When the eruption happens, it has an explosive effect, like opening a champagne bottle after shaking it," Fabrizio Marra, from INGV, told Italian daily La Repubblica.

"This sort of process has, for example, caused the string of earthquakes that hit this area at the beginning of the 1990s, with minor quakes and a few cases of magnitude four quakes."

(Telegraph)