A 5.8-magnitude earthquake has struck Northern Italy, killing 15 people and damaging a number of buildings in the Emilia Romagna region, at 9 a.m. local time this morning. Shaking the Italian province of Modena, the aftershock caused production facilities Maserati, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Pagani, and Ducati motorcycles to announce a halt in operations.
Modena is uniquely home to a number of sports car marques of the highest tier, with the five companies located mere streets away from one another while the epicenter of the quake originated only 25 miles off the province.
Updated earlier this morning, Ferrari announced on its twitter account @insideferrari: "After the earthquake, working activity has been suspended for today. All the workers and employees have been allowed to join their families."
According to reports from the Wall Street Journal, facilities have been closed for inspection as a precaution but, thankfully, there have been no reports of injuries from the employees. Most of the facilities seem to have escaped the incident unscathed but omniauto.it reported that Maserati seemed to have suffered damages, although the extent of the damages are unknown.
In the latest, Lamborghini announced from its twitter account @lamborghini that "everything seems to be fine!" Lamborghini is also accessing the status of its suppliers, ready to react if a potential shortage of components are expected. Nontheless, all manufacturers have reported that operations are expected to resume as early as tomorrow.
Our thoughts go out to the families of Northern Italy affected by the disaster.
During the month of March last year, an earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, devastating a number of automakers in the area as well.
