Another earthquake in central Italy

[Scooter]

A series of earthquakes in the early morning hours centred in the provinces of Rieti and Perugia have caused damage and claimed victims in the regions of Lazio, Umbria, Marche and Abruzzo. Some villages have been pretty much levelled. Tremors were felt from Bologna to Naples. Dozens of aftershocks have followed.

[Gob]

Nasty!

[Lord Jim]

6.2-Magnitude Earthquake Rattles Italy, Killing Dozens

AMATRICE, Italy — Strong earthquakes struck a mountainous stretch of central Italy early Wednesday, killing at least 38 people, the Italian news media reported, trapping scores under debris and setting off tremors that awakened residents in Rome, nearly 100 miles to the southwest.

The first, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake, struck at 3:36 a.m. near the town of Accumoli, which the Civil Protection Department identified as among the hardest hit, along with the nearby towns of Amatrice and Arquata del Tronto.

The death toll was expected to rise, and officials said roughly 40 strong earthquakes were reported over a three-hour period.

In Amatrice, Mayor Sergio Pirozzi said, “Half the town no longer exists.” Mr. Pirozzi said that the number of victims was uncertain and that rescue teams were digging through the rubble of crumbled buildings, “hoping that most people were alive,” but he said that the historic center had been destroyed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/world ... .html?_r=0

What's puzzling to me about this, is how an earthquake of just a 6.2 magnitude could cause this level of death and destruction in a First World country...An earthquake of that magnitude in this area, (or anywhere else in California) would not (and has not) caused anywhere near that type of loss in many decades...

And it's not like this is a region where earth quakes are a rarity:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016 ... story.html

There have got to be some serious problems with building codes and/or their enforcement...

[Scooter]

From looking at pictures of damage it looks like a lot of the crumbled buildings were quite old construction that would have predated modern building codes. But I am sure, as was the case in the earthquake that hit L'Aquila in 2009, that it wlll be determined that many buildings constructed under the supposedly stringent building codes enacted after the devastating 1980 Irpinia earthquake were also damaged. Good old fashioned Italian corruption at work.

[rubato]

"...

What's puzzling to me about this, is how an earthquake of just a 6.2 magnitude could cause this level of death and destruction in a First World country...An earthquake of that magnitude in this area, (or anywhere else in California) would not (and has not) caused anywhere near that type of loss in many decades...

And it's not like this is a region where earth quakes are a rarity:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016 ... story.html

There have got to be some serious problems with building codes and/or their enforcement...

There is a serious economic and political problem dealing with seismic hazards in older, especially masonry, buildings. Retrofitting is very costly and in many cases will save the lives of people in the buildings but the building will still be destroyed so that it is a tough sell. It can make more sense to knock it down and build new but then the historic preservationists get involved and in order to pay the costs of new construction you need to charge tenants a lot more in rent. That is why there was so much damage after the Loma Prieta and Napa quakes. Everyone knew what the hazards were but there was never the political will to fix it in advance. S.F. still has trouble enforcing stricter rules about soft story construction in residences (a house with a garage underneath for example).

And well, if large quakes were really common then those buildings would have been long gone, right?

The Northridge quake did see extensive damage due to a lack of code enforcement, no stick-built building 3 stories or less should have been damaged at all but many were completely uninhabitable, collapsed. Regulations are baaaad. Right.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

From looking at pictures of damage it looks like a lot of the crumbled buildings were quite old construction that would have predated modern building codes. But I am sure, as was the case in the earthquake that hit L'Aquila in 2009, that it wlll be determined that many buildings constructed under the supposedly stringent building codes enacted after the devastating 1980 Irpinia earthquake were also damaged. Good old fashioned Italian corruption at work.

Maybe. But what we know about building for earthquakes is a lot better now than 36 years ago.

And the Christchurch NZ quake was relative small by California standards (as were those in Italy) and had devastating effects.



The worst cast of lack of building code enforcement was in the 2008 Sichuan quake where modern concrete buildings has so little cement in them the walls were like styrofoam.



yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

The death toll has risen significantly, and is likely to go higher still... :

Italy earthquake: Death toll rises to at least 120

At least 120 people have been killed and 368 injured in an earthquake that hit a mountainous area of central Italy, PM Matteo Renzi has said.

The magnitude-6.2 quake struck at 03:36 (01:36 GMT), 100km (65 miles) north-east of Rome, not far from Perugia.

Many of the dead were in the historic town of Amatrice, where the mayor said three-quarters of the town was destroyed, and in nearby Accumoli.

Many people are still believed to be buried under rubble.

"This is not a final toll," Mr Renzi warned as he gave the latest figures.

He had earlier paid tribute to the volunteers and civil defence officials who had rushed to the scene in the middle of the night and used their bare hands to dig for survivors.

He promised "no family, no city, no hamlet will be left behind".

The tremor was felt across Italy, from Bologna in the north to Naples in the south. There have been dozens of aftershocks.

Hardest hit were the small towns and villages in the mountainous area where the regions of Umbria, Lazio and Le Marche meet.

Italy's civil protection department said that at least 73 people were now known to have been killed.

In Amatrice at least 35 people have been killed, according to Italian news agency Ansa. Rescuers are trying to free a child trapped under the rubble there, and the missing include three nuns

In Accumoli, 11 people are known to have been killed, including a mother, father and their two young sons. Mayor Stefano Petrucci told Ansa that not a house in the town was fit for habitation, and they would have to set up tents to house everyone

In the villages of Arquata del Tronto and Pescara del Tronto, 17 people have died, according to Ansa. Almost all houses in Pescara del Tronto have collapsed, the local mayor said

In Arquata, a grandmother saved her two grandchildren, aged four and seven, by pulling them under a bed with her

Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology said it had recorded more than 200 aftershocks by 15:00 (13:00 GMT) on Wednesday.

The country is no stranger to earthquakes: in 2009 a tremor killed more than 300 people in L'Aquila and in May 2012 two tremors nine days apart killed more than 20 people in the northern Emilia Romagna region.

Rescue teams from around the country have been sent to the affected region.

The area is mountainous and access is difficult. Tent camps are being set up for those who need shelter, while others will be accommodated in buildings such as gymnasiums.

Many of the people affected are on holiday.

The national blood donation service has appealed for donors to come forward.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37171953

[Scooter]

Aftershocks rattle Italian quake zone; toll rises to 250

PESCARA DEL TRONO, Italy -- Aftershocks in central Italy rattled residents and rescue workers alike Thursday, as crews worked to find more earthquake survivors and the country anguished over its repeated failure to protect ancient towns and modern cities from seismic catastrophes.

A day after a shallow quake killed 250 people and levelled three small towns, a 4.3 magnitude aftershock sent up plumes of thick grey dust in the hard-hit town of Amatrice. The aftershock crumbled already cracked buildings, prompted authorities to close roads and sent another person to the hospital.

It was only one of the more than 470 temblors that have followed Wednesday's pre-dawn quake.

Firefighters and rescue crews using sniffer dogs worked in teams around the hard-hit areas in central Italy, pulling chunks of cement, rock and metal from mounds of rubble where homes once stood. Rescuers refused to say when their work would shift from saving lives to recovering bodies, noting that one person was pulled alive from the rubble 72 hours after the 2009 quake in the Italian town of L'Aquila.

"We will work relentlessly until the last person is found, and make sure no one is trapped," said Lorenzo Botti, a rescue team spokesman.

Worst affected by the quake were the tiny towns of Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, 100 kilometres (60 miles) northeast of Rome, and Pescara del Tronto, 25 kilometres (15 miles) further to the east.

[BoSoxGal]

[Scooter]

It's interesting and I'd like to know the reasons for the different dynamic - the L'Aquila earthquake hit an urban area but the death toll here may reach almost has high as that one (308), although thus far there are far fewer injured or left homeless, I guess it must be a function of the fact that a few small villages were simply flattened.

[rubato]

The news stories mention a lot of midieval unreinforced masonry buildings. While Italy has some recurrent earthquakes they appear not strong enough or frequent enough to have knocked down the backlog of many centuries-old structures vulnerable to shaking.


yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

[Scooter]

Aftershocks threaten recovery efforts in Italy as death toll hits 281

Rescue workers acknowledged Friday they might not find any more survivors from Italy's earthquake as they confronted a new obstacle to their recovery work: a powerful aftershock that damaged two key access bridges to hard-hit Amatrice, threatening to isolate it.

Mayor Sergio Pirozzi, warned that if new roads weren't quickly cleared to bypass the damaged ones, Amatrice risked being cut off at a time it needs as many transport options as possible to bring emergency crews in and some of the quake's 281 dead out.

"With the aftershocks yesterday but especially this morning the situation has worsened considerably," Pirozzi told reporters. "We have to make sure Amatrice does not become isolated, or risk further help being unable to get through."

The biggest aftershock struck at 6:28 a.m., one of the more than 1,000 that have hit the area since Wednesday's quake. The U.S. Geological Service said it had a magnitude of 4.7, while the Italian geophysics institute measured it at 4.8.

It left one key access bridge to Amatrice unusable, and damaged another one. Crews began clearing trees to create an alternate bypass road to avoid the nearly 40-kilometre detour up and down mountain roads that they were forced to use Friday, slowing the rescue effort.

Three days after the quake struck the mountainous heart of the country, sniffer dogs and emergency crews continued to scour the town of Amatrice, which was levelled in the disaster, but there was no sign of life beneath the debris.

"Only a miracle can bring our friends back alive from the rubble, but we are still digging because many are missing," town mayor Sergio Pirozzi told reporters, saying, around 15 people, including some children, had not been accounted for.

In nearby villages, such as Pescara del Tronto, rescuers pulled out after all the inhabitants had been accounted for.

Italy plans to hold a state funeral for around 40 of the victims on Saturday, which will be held in the nearby city of Ascoli Piceno.

[Scooter]

Unsurprisingly, preliminary investigations are already showing that public buildings including schools that should have been built to earthquake-resistant standards collapsed. At the funeral in Amatrice, the Bishop of Rieti preached that the blame lies not with God, but with those who constructed buildings of sand.

Apologies for the Italian sources, but I don't know if any English language press are covering this as of yet.

Good old fashioned Italian corruption shows its face again.