6.2 Shallow Earthquake Hits Central Italy - Towns Just Collapsed

Quake devastates mountain towns in central Italy, at least 20 believed killed

• Reuters  Metro
  Wednesday, August 24, 2016
  

The earthquake caused damage to towns in three regions - Umbria, Lazio and Marche.

An earthquake devastated a string of mountainous towns over a swathe of central Italy early on Wednesday, trapping residents under hills of rubble, with at least 20 people believed killed and many missing.
The quake struck in the early hours of the morning when most people were asleep, razing homes and buckling roads in a cluster of towns and villages some 140 km (85 miles) east of Rome.
The emergency services released an aerial photograph showing whole areas of the town of Amatrice flattened, while debris filled the streets of nearby Accumoli.
"Now that daylight has come, we see that the situation is even more dreadful than we feared, with buildings collapsed, people trapped under the rubble and no sound of life," said Accumoli mayor Stefano Petrucci.
Wide cracks appeared like open wounds on the buildings that were still standing.
Residents sifted through the rubble with their bare hands before emergency services arrived with earth-moving equipment and sniffer dogs.
The quake hit during the summer when the populations of the communities in the area, normally low during the rest of the year, are swelled by vacationers.
Officials said six people were known to have died in Accumoli and a further six were reported dead in Amatrice. Sky Italia television said 10 had died in the nearby village of Pescara del Tronto. Some 100 people were still unaccounted for in the village of Arquata del Tronto.
"Three quarters of the town is not there anymore," Amatrice mayor Sergio Pirozzi told state broadcaster RAI. "The aim now is to save as many lives as possible. There are voices under the rubble, we have to save the people there."
A Reuters reporter said the town's hospital had been badly damaged by the quake, with patients moved into the streets. RAI reported that two Afghan girls, believed to be asylum-seekers, were also missing in the town.
The earthquake caused damage to towns in three regions - Umbria, Lazio and Marche.
The U.S. Geological Survey, which measured the quake at 6.2 magnitude, said it struck near the Umbrian city of Norcia, while Italy's earthquake institute INGV registered it at 6.0 and put the epicenter further south, closer to Accumoli and Amatrice.
The damage was made more severe because the epicenter was at a relatively shallow 4 km below the surface of the earth.
MULTIPLE AFTERSHOCKS
Residents of Rome were woken by the tremors, which rattled furniture, swayed lights and set off car alarms in most of central Italy.
"It was so strong. It seemed the bed was walking across the room by itself with us on it," Lina Mercantini of Ceselli, Umbria, about 75 km away from the hardest hit area, told Reuters.
Olga Urbani, in the nearby town of Scheggino, said: "Dear God it was awful. The walls creaked and all the books fell off the shelves."
INGV reported 60 aftershocks in the four hours following the initial quake, the strongest measuring 5.5.
Italy sits on two fault lines, making it one of the most seismically active countries in Europe.
The last major earthquake to hit the country struck the central city of L'Aquila in 2009, killing more than 300 people.
The most deadly since the start of the 20th century came in 1908, when an earthquake followed by a tsunami killed an estimated 80,000 people in the southern regions of Reggio Calabria and Sicily.
http://www.metro.us/news/quake-devastates-mountain-towns-in-central-italy-at-least-20-believed-killed/zsJphx---hb11NEbX7uNzs/

Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time.
Earthquake watchers have been observing the build up of pressure and worrying about the likelihood of destructive mega-events at hot spots all around the world.
But now, a 6.2 earthquake has destroyed the lives of many people in small towns in central Italy, while it shook the capital in Rome.
At least 120 people are dead, and rescue workers are still searching for survivors and totaling the massive destruction.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said on Wednesday evening that at least 120 people are dead as a result.
The quake hit at 01:36 GMT with an epicenter 76 kilometers southeast of the city of Perugia, the US Geological Survey reported.
The town of Norcia, home to some 5,000 residents, lies just 10km southeast of the quake’s epicenter, according to US Geological Survey (USGS). The ancient Italian city of Spoleto in the Perugia province with some 40,000 residents is located 35km east of the quake.

The worst hit was the small town of Armatrice, with some 2,700 residents, which witnesses have described with this terrifying phrase: ‘Town doesn’t exist anymore’
As RT reported, several people are trapped under the rubble, and it is not yet clear how many of those have survived:

Caterpillar Radio2 reported “many collapses” in the town of Amatrice in the Rieti province.
“I’m trying to contact the services. The town doesn’t exist anymore,” he added.
Although, there is no information on the casualties yet, several people are trapped under the rubble, the mayor confirmed, La Republica reported.
“There’s been a landslide and a bridge might collapse,” the mayor told RAI.

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/6-2-earthquake-wrecks-central-italy-kills-at-least-120-town-doesnt-exist-anymore_08242016

‘She’s alive!’ girl, 8, pulled from rubble hours after earthquake in Italy
By Metro -
August 24, 2016
 
Rescuers carry a victim following an earthquake in central Italy (Picture: AP)

An 8-year-old girl has been pulled alive from the rubble in Pescara del Tronto, one of the three towns most devastated by the earthquake in Italy.
After nightfall Wednesday, two women ran up the street yelling “She’s alive!”
Chief firefighter Danilo Dionesei confirmed the girl was pulled out alive and was taken to a nearby hospital.  He didn’t immediately give any further details about her condition.  Rescue crews using bulldozers and their bare hands raced to dig out survivors following a strong earthquake that has reduced three central Italian towns to rubble.  

A mother embraces her childin Amatrice, central Italy after an earthquake
(Picture: EPA)

Rescue and emergency services personnel carry a survivor on a stretcher during search and rescue operations (Picture: Getty)
The death toll currently standsat 120, but the number of dead and missing was uncertain given the huge number of tourists in the area.
‘The town isn’t here anymore,’ said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of the hardest-hit town, Amatrice. The magnitude 6 quake struck at 3.36am local time and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome, where residents woke to a long swaying followed by aftershocks.

The quake shook the Lazio region and Umbria and Le Marche on the Adriatic coast, a highly seismic area that has witnessed major quakes in the past.
‘Unfortunately, 90% we pull out are dead, but some make it, that’s why we are here,’ said Christian Bianchetti, a volunteer from Rieti who was working in devastated Amatrice where flood lights were set up so the rescue could continue through the night.

A earthquake magnitude 6.0 struck central Italy (Picture: Rex)
https://reportuk.org/2016/08/24/shes-alive-girl-8-pulled-from-rubble-hours-after-earthquake-in-italy/

Race For Survivors in Italy as Quake Death Toll Climbs to 247
By J.J. GALLAGHER Aug 25, 2016, 6:44 AM ET
Rescue workers raced to find survivors one day after a powerful 6.2 magnitude earthquake rocked central Italy, killing at least 247, injuring hundreds more and leaving thousands homeless.
Residents of picturesque mountain towns found themselves sleeping in cars and tents Wednesday night after a harrowing day of searching for survivors and assessing widespread damages, even as continued tremors shook the area.

A powerful 4.7 magnitude aftershock hit the area at around 5 a.m. local time Thursday, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Wednesday's quake nearly leveled the towns of Amatrice, Accumoli and Pescara del Tronto.  Tremors were felt as far away as Rome, more than 100 miles from the quake's epicenter. Italy's earthquake institute reported 150 aftershocks in the 12 hours following the initial quake, the strongest measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale.

The Italian government allocated 234 million euros to the search and recovery effort on Thursday, as glimmers of hope buoyed rescue teams who worked through the night in a desperate search for people trapped under collapsed buildings.

Early Thursday, firefighters pulled a 10-year-old girl alive from the rubble in the town of Pescara del Tronto. "You can hear something under here. Quiet, quiet," one rescue worker said, according to the Associated Press, before soon urging her on: "Come on, Giulia, come on, Giulia." Cheers broke out when she emerged from the wreckage.
Still, the death toll continued to climb as more and more bodies were recovered.  "Unfortunately, 90 percent we pull out are dead, but some make it, that's why we are here," said Christian Bianchetti, a volunteer from Rieti who worked through the night in Amatrice.



The mayor of Amatrice expressed concern for the approximately 70 guests staying at the town's Hotel Roma, only a handful of whom have so far been pulled out. The historic town's population swells with visitors in the summer months, likely adding to the quake's toll.
Italy's health minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, visited the devastated area Wednesday and noted that many of the victims were children.

ABC News
Italian Premier Matteo Renzi also visited the zone Wednesday, greeted rescue teams and survivors, and pledged that "No family, no city, no hamlet will be left behind."
Italy's Civil Protection agency updated the death toll from 159 to 247 early Thursday morning. The U.S. State Department has so far not reported any U.S. citizen casualties, saying that the U.S. Embassy was working to verify the welfare and whereabouts of U.S. citizens in the area.

In the town of Amatrice, the damage was so extensive that Mayor Sergio Pirozzi said, "The town isn't here anymore."
The State Dept. advised U.S. citizens to avoid the region of central Italy near the towns of Amatrice, Accumoli, Arquata del Tronto, and Pescara del Tronto.

"Many roads have been blocked," the State Dept. said in a statement, noting that "numerous aftershocks have already been felt throughout the region, and there is the potential for further aftershocks."
http://abcnews.go.com/International/race-survivors-italy-quake-death-toll-climbs-247/story?id=41640629

Italy Earthquake: State Funeral for 35 Victims as Toll Reaches 290
by Alastair Jamieson, Chris Essner and Lucy Kafanov
News
Aug 27 2016, 6:14 am ET                           
The death toll in Italy's devastating earthquake rose to 290 Saturday as the country began a day of mourning and prepared for a mass state funeral for some of the victims.
Rescuers continued to search the rubble for survivors but it has been three days since anyone was found alive in the ruins of the worst-hit mountainous towns.

Two girls embrace in Ascoli Piceno, central Italy, Saturday, as they wait for the start of a mass funeral for some earthquake victims. Cristiano Chiodi / AP                     

Hundreds of grieving families have also been left homeless by Wednesday morning's temblor, including 150 who spent the night at a gym in Amatrice that has been turned into a makeshift emergency shelter.
In an update early Saturday, Italy's civil protection agency said its latest total of 290 victims including 230 in Amatrice, 11 in Accumoli and 49 in Arquata del Tronto.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella flew to Amatrice by helicopter Saturday to see the damage first hand before traveling on later in the morning to the nearby city of Ascoli Piceno for the funeral of 35 of the victims.
"Thank you for the work you are doing," he told Red Cross volunteers.
Mourners gathered at a sports center in the town, where the 35 coffins were lined up by early Saturday.                      
"Even if I didn't know them my heart broke for them. My thoughts are with them because there are people who have lost everything, homes, loved ones and the sacrifices made in life," said local resident, Luciana Cavicchiuni.
"These things should not happen," she said.
Overnight, the area was rattled by yet more aftershocks. The strongest, at 4:50 a.m., had a magnitude of 4.2, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.                      

A memorial service will take place Wednesday evening in Amatrice.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/italy-earthquake-state-funeral-35-victims-toll-reaches-290-n638666

Europe
Prosecutors Investigate Builders After Italy Quake
August 28, 2016 7:37 AM  Jamie Dettmer
Italian officials have opened an investigation to focus on different structures that collapsed after Wednesday’s powerful quake, devastating four towns in the mountainous heartland of the country and rattling the central agricultural regions.
Regional public prosecutors say they will not only investigate why recently constructed public buildings, including a schoolhouse renovated in 2012, failed to withstand the quake’s force, but they are threatening also to file charges against private-property owners who may have altered their houses — most very ancient — in ways that breached current building codes and anti-seismic engineering regulations.
The chief prosecutor of the province of Rieti, Giuseppe Saieva, told The Guardian that "everyone suspects such a tragedy was not just a question of destiny."
"Our duty is to verify if there was also responsibility, human culpability," he said.
Italy marked a day of national mourning Saturday for the nearly 300 people confirmed killed.

Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, left, comforts a woman at the end of the state funeral service for some of the victims of the earthquake that hit central Italy last Wednesday, in Ascoli Piceno, Italy, Aug. 27, 2016

Criminal charges for illegal renovations
The prosecutors’ threats are enraging survivors and relatives of the dead. Residents stress that renovation work seldom observes the country’s notoriously complex building regulations, which more often than not are bypassed by homeowners with a bribe or a fine agreed with their local commune (town) officials.
“Our houses are hundreds of years [old] and it is impossible or prohibitively expensive to make changes within the regulations that are drawn up by the government in Rome without any regard to our economic circumstances,” said Perluigi, a retiree from Amatrice, the worst-hit of four towns devastated by the midweek quake. He asked for his full name to be withheld as he had recently renovated his property.

Rescuers work at a collapsed house following an earthquake in Amatrice, Aug. 26, 2016.

Saieva appears to have little sympathy for traditional arguments about building codes and complaints about the byzantine, slow-moving bureaucracies that ordinary homeowners have to battle to get anything done. He says he intends to mount a house-by-house investigation and is prepared to file criminal charges against anyone - even those who lost family members - if their renovations failed to observe anti-seismic regulations.
“If you moved a partition, you risk being charged with manslaughter,” he argued. Saieva added: "There is the responsibility of nature and seismic activity and then there is the responsibility of individuals.” The prosecutor says he’s considering ordering police to mount a round-the-clock guard on the rubble of Amatrice’s municipal buildings to ensure documents and computer hard drives that survived the quake aren’t removed.
The renovation work on the town’s elementary schoolhouse four years ago was undertaken by brothers who have been accused in the past of association with the mafia.
More burials for town in mourning
As the prosecutor issued his threats, nine more bodies were dug out Saturday by emergency crews from the rubble of Amatrice, which so far has accounted for 230 of those killed midweek. Earlier Saturday, Italian President Sergio Mattarella toured the mainly medieval hilltop stone town to see the damage for himself before traveling to Ascoli Piceno for a funeral service held in a sports hall where 35 wooden coffins were lined up.
On the top of the coffins were flowers and photographs of those who lost their lives. The dead being honored at Ascoli Piceno came from Arquata del Tronto, another one of the towns devastated by Wednesday’s magnitued 6.2 quake.
Two of the caskets contained the remains of two children - 18-month-old Marisol Piermarini and nine-year-old Giulia Rinaldo, whose younger sister survived and was found by a rescue crew holding her dead sibling.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi repeated his promise at the funeral service to rebuild the shattered communities, but the mayor of Amatrice urged the government to not only rebuild but also not to repeat the snail-pace post-quake reconstructions of recent years.

Renovation work on the city of L’Aquila, which was severely damaged in a 2009 quake, still remains incomplete and more than 8,000 of the city’s inhabitants are still housed in temporary accommodation.
“What we need is a reconstruction in record time. It is a great opportunity for politicians to show extraordinary commitment," Mayor Sergio Pirozzi told President Mattarella.
Mourners who packed the sweltering sports hall included many injured from the earthquake. They wept and embraced each other as Ascoli Piceno’s bishop, Giovanni D’Ercole, told them: “Don't be afraid to cry out your suffering — I have seen a lot of this — but please do not lose courage.”
The prelate also urged the government to rebuild the towns of Amatrice, Arquata, Accumoli and Pescara del Tronto, saying, “Only together can we rebuild our houses and our churches. Together, above all, we will be able to restore life to our communities.”
As the bishop spoke, many of the relatives of the dead cried quietly. One woman consoled her husband by rubbing his back gently as he bowed his head. Among the mourners were doctors and nurses who had treated the injured.
Reforms urged for quake-prone Italy
Outside the packed sports hall, hundreds of locals came to pay their respects. “Even if I didn't know them my heart broke for them. My thoughts are with them because there are people who have lost everything, homes, loved ones,” local resident, Luciana Cavicchiuni, told reporters.
She added: “These things should not happen.”
But civil protection experts and geologists say Italy is likely to experience many more high death tolls and quake devastation in the future.
In an interview with Rome’s Il Messaggero newspaper, Fabrizio Curcio, an engineer and head of the Dipartimento della Protezione Civile, warned that earthquakes in Italy, which is built on two major seismic fault-lines, have become a regular fixture and that the time between big temblors hitting is reducing all the time.
He argues that Italians need to rethink what they expect from the government in terms of rebuilding damaged towns and homes. Currently the vast majority of Italians do not take out insurance on their homes — let alone earthquake insurance. Many private-sector insurers don’t even offer quake insurance, even if a homeowner requests it.
This needs to change, says Curcio, who thinks Italians need to be willing to have their homes assessed by insurers from a seismic point of view. “I believe this is the model to aim for, even, to limit the burden on the State,” he maintains.
But it will be difficult for politicians to engineer such a change and to persuade already straitened households, especially in deeply depressed and neglected rural areas where unemployment is sky high and economic prospects remain grim, to accept the cost of private insurance.
http://www.voanews.com/a/prosecutors-investigate-builders-after-italy-quake/3483719.html

AP September 2, 2016, 5:18 PM
Italy earthquake: Miracle dog found alive in rubble 9 days after quake
 
Alessandro Di Meo/ANSA via AP Photo                                
ROME - Firefighters rescued a Golden Retriever from a pile of quake rubble after they heard the dog barking, nine days after the temblor struck central Italy.
The dog, called Romeo, appeared to be bewildered at first as it scampered down the mound of broken concrete and other debris, but quickly took a few steps, wagged its tail and sniffed its surroundings.
Firefighters told The Associated Press rescuers heard the dog bark as they were accompanying the pet’s owners to retrieve essential belongings from their quake-damaged home.
The Aug. 24 temblor claimed nearly 300 lives, injured hundreds and left thousands of people either without homes or with homes unsafe to immediately inhabit. Three towns were flattened.
The nation has begun looking to the future, with Premier Matteo Renzi this week tapping a reconstruction czar to oversee the rebuilding and investigators acquiring the first documentation into the construction blamed for the high death toll​.
Renzi nominated Vasco Errani to be reconstruction czar on Thursday. Errani had been president of the Emilio Romagna region in 2012 when two quakes - nine days apart - collapsed factories, homes and buildings in one of Italy’s most productive regions.
Renzi said Emilio Romagna is now standing thanks to the reconstruction effort and that “we’re choosing the same team” to rebuild quake-devastated Amatrice, Accumoli, Arquata and their surrounding hamlets.
He spoke at a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who announced that Germany would fund the construction of a school in the quake zone. Merkel also greeted rescue crews and shook the paw of Leo the black Labrador, who helped locate a 4-year-old survivor, Giorgia, in the rubble.
Merkel said the location of the German-donated school hadn’t been decided, but Amatrice’s elementary school crumbled in the Aug. 24 temblor despite having been restored with public funds designated for anti-seismic improvements.
On Wednesday, firefighters conducted a preliminary search of the ruins of the school and financial police began collecting documentation from municipal offices about contracts for renovations of quake-destroyed public buildings, the school included.
“The question is this: We have to understand if the contract was executed, how the contract for the anti-seismic improvements was executed, and the possible reasons for why these improvements might not have been done,” Raffaele Cantone, Italy’s anti-corruption czar, told state-run RAI.

Rieti chief prosecutor Giuseppe Saieva, who is heading up the investigation, said it was too early to speak about any possible suspects.
On Wednesday, the construction firm that carried out the school renovations, Edil Quality, turned over to prosecutors a thick dossier of about 20 documents concerning the works, according to officials at the Rome office of attorney Massimo Biffa. The head of Edil Quality, Gianfranco Truffarelli, has told Italian media that the city of Amatrice never contracted it to bring the school up to anti-seismic standards, just to perform improvements.
Both Merkel and Renzi were asked if Italy would seek budget flexibility from the EU in providing public funds for anti-seismic prevention efforts. Merkel said it was up to Renzi to come up with a transparent proposal.
“I think in Europe we will find a solution,” she said.
But Renzi said the priority was to simply spend well the money that Italy already has, a veiled reference to Italy’s long-standing failure to secure its buildings against earthquakes. Renzi has proposed a new long-term, national program to improve the safety of buildings in Italy, which has Western Europe’s highest seismic risk.
“Given that we’re great at emergency response, given that we’re great at being generous, let us also become leaders in prevention,” Renzi said. “It doesn’t require infinite resources. It requires a change of mentality.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/italy-earthquake-miracle-dog-found-alive-in-rubble-9-days-after-quake/