An earthquake measuring 3.7 on the Richter scale shook the Alpes-Maritimes late Saturday night and was felt throughout the Nice region, at Cagnes-sur-Mer, and in Monaco and Menton.
The epicentre of the quake registered at 23:37 local time was off the coast at San Remo, 10 kilometres below the surface. The tremors lasted about four seconds.
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In other news, a shock increase in road deaths in France during the month of September – up 30.4 percent on September 2015 – can be largely explained by very poor weather last year, the National Office of Traffic Safety said on Friday.
In hard numbers, 335 people lost their lives in French roads last month, 78 more than in the same month of last year. There had been a sharp decline in road deaths in September 2015, by 17.4 percent, due to adverse weather, heavy rains and floods that curtailed many road trips.
However, after 12 years of decline, French road deaths have been increasing over the last three years, from 3,384 fatalities in 2014 (up by 3.5 percent from 2013) to 3,464 in 2015. This was the first time in 35 years that France’s road toll had increased over two consecutive years.