Earthquake

Posted on 6 April 2009 by Paolo Bernardi

The last night, at 1:32 UTC (3:32 local time), a very bad earthquake happened in the center of Italy. As official sources (link in Italian) say it was 5.8 (or 6.3) magnitude on Richter’s scale and the ipocentre was 8.8km deep. The epicentre was near the city L’Aquila, a bit more than 100km from where I live, near Terni.  Many buildings of L’Aquila and nearby towns have been destroyed, especially these that hadn’t been built with earthquakes resistance in mind; anyway, many buildings built with anti-earthquakes criterion in mind have also been damaged. The last news report more than 90 victims,  hundreds people injured and about one hundred thousand people that can’t go back to their homes.

Update (19:15 UTC / 21:15 local)

The victim number keeps growing, now it’s more than 150. During the day several tremors happened, the population nerves are really tense. Some jackals started to exploit the chaos. Also, the hospital, which should have been built following the anti-quakes laws directives (it is 13 years old, such laws are about 20 years old instead) is severely damaged as well.

Update April the 7th (6:00 UTC / 8:00 local)

During the night several corpses have been found, now they’re 179 in total. The night passed away with some minor quakes, the strongest being 4.8 on Richter’s scale. It rained during the whole night, which didn’t quite help.

Update April the 7th (18:00 UTC / 20:30 local)

At 17:42 UTC (19:42 local) there was another tremor estimated around 5.7 on Richter’s scale; it caused some additional building’s damage and at least another victim, the cathedral of L’Aquila went completly down after that. So far, the number of dead people is 228.

Update April the 8th (20:10 UTC / 22:10 local)

The number of victims grew up to 272, he first funerals have been celebrated. The hope to find alive people lowers more and more, but tomorrow the search for people will continue.

Update April the 9th (19:45 UTC / 21:45 local)

The number of dead people is not 281. I just felt another tremor from where I live (near Terni, Umbria, 100km from L’Aquila): it was as strong as the strongest ones of these days but shorter, about 10 seconds. I still have no official news about this one.

Update April the 11th (9:15 UTC / 11:45 local)

This will be the last update, unless something unexpected happens; by now the situation seems stable enough. The number of victims is now 291, and yesterday there have been funerals for 205 of them.

I will probably write again about all this in future, but for now that’s all.

Posted in Inspiration,

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