The ANNOTICO Report
Italy's worst earthquake in 60 years (soon eclipsed by
the 1980 Earthquake)
killed more than 550 people and left 80,000 homeless.
The following 12 months saw hundreds more tremors in the
region, the
largest of which struck in September.
Altogether, the May and September quakes killed 951 people,
injured 2,400
and left 45,000 homeless.
Damage was estimated at £3,000m. ($ 8 Trillion USD)
See at end: 'Italy's Earthquake History (1693-1997)',and
'Italy at the
Mercy of Fault Lines'
BBC News
On This Day
May 7, 2005
Italy's worst ever earthquake has killed more than 550
people and left
80,000 homeless.
At least 1,000 people were injured when the quake struck
the northern
region of Friuli last night, affecting 11 villages near
the Austrian and
Yugoslav borders.
A government spokesman said as many as 1,000 may have
been killed. It is
likely the death toll will rise as rescue workers find
more bodies under
the rubble of fallen buildings.
The local military and Red Cross are on the scene. They
are due to be
joined by rescue workers from Venice and Trieste.
Officials from the affected towns are continuing to appeal
for medicine and
emergency lights for hospitals. American army units in
the area have flown
in equipment and medical staff by helicopter and flown
out the injured.
Moved to tears
President Giovanni Leone and the Interior Minister, Francesco
Cossiga,
visited the earthquake zone by helicopter. They were
moved to tears when
they spoke to the injured at a hospital in the small
town of Maiano, 10
miles (16km) north-west of Udine.
The hill town of Gemona, further north, was almost flattened,
killing at
least 100 people. A cemetery worker told reporters: "We
just haven't got
enough coffins."
Inmates of the town's prison tried to scale the walls
in their panic to get
out but were beaten back by machine-gun fire.
This last quake, which measured 6.5 on the Richter scale,
was by far the
strongest of the 23 tremors which began on the night
of 5 May. It could be
felt in France, West Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia,
Poland and
Yugoslavia.
Most of the 180,000 people who live in the Friuli region
spent the night
outdoors for fear of further aftershocks...
The following 12 months saw hundreds more tremors in the
region, the
largest of which struck in September.
Altogether, the May and September quakes killed 951 people,
injured 2,400
and left 45,000 homeless.
Damage was estimated at £3,000m.
The Italian government came under strong criticism for
allowing red tape to
hamper reconstruction of the area.
When Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti visited the region
in September, he
was greeted with angry protests from refugees who had
been living in tents
for four months.
Tent cities were - eventually - replaced with 20,000 prefabricated houses.
Using donations from the European Community, the government
had spent £250m
by the end of 1976 to rebuild the infrastructure of the
region and rehouse
its inhabitants.
Northern and central Italy are susceptible to earthquakes,
with many minor
tremors occurring on a regular basis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/
hi/dates/stories/may/7/newsid_
2518000/2518519.stm
BBC News
Thursday, 31 October, 2002
A series of quakes in 1997 left 40,000 homeless
The earthquake that has struck the village of San Giuliano
di Puglia is the
latest in a long line of quakes to hit southern Italy:
1997 - More than 40,000 people lose their homes and 13
die in a series of
earthquakes in September. Four of the victims are killed
as the roof of the
Basilica of St Francis in Assisi collapses. Priceless
frescoes are also
damaged.
1980 - 2,735 people are killed and more than 7,500 injured
in a quake
measuring at least 6.9 on the Richter scale. The epicentre
is at Eboli,
about 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Naples, and damage
is widespread.
More than 1,500 people are reported missing.
1976 - An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale
rocks Friuli in
northeastern Italy, killing 976 people and leaving 70,000
others homeless.
1915 - An earthquake on 13 January shakes southern Italy.
The town of
Avezzano at its epicentre is completely destroyed. The
death toll is
estimated to be at least 30,000.
1908 - On 28 December Europe's most powerful earthquake
strikes the Messina
Strait, which separates Sicily from Calabria.
The effects, combined with a large tsunami or tidal wave
triggered by the
earthquake, are devastating.
Estimates of fatalities vary, but may be as high as 200,000.
The quake's magnitude is equal to 7.5 on the modern Richter scale.
1905 - An earthquake obliterates 25 villages in the Calabria
region,
killing about 5,000 people.
1783 - Calabria on the southern tip of Italy is hit by
an earthquake,
killing about 50,000.
1693 - Earthquakes hit southern Italy, killing an estimated
60,000 in
Catania, Sicily, and 93,000 in Naples.
"The crash of falling houses, the tottering of towers,
and the groans of
the dying, all contributed to raise my terror and despair,"
writes one
eyewitness.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/
world/europe/2381585.stm
BBC News
Thursday, 31 October, 2002
[Map on the web site illustrates North-South and East-West Faults]
Italy has a long history of earthquakes - experts say
they have influenced
everything from the distribution of the population and
adaptation of
architecture to the dialect spoken in different areas
of the country.
Since the major earthquake of 1627, which devastated the
central region of
Gargano, Italy has acquired a reputation as being one
of the most
earthquake-prone countries in the world.
What makes it so, say experts, is the overall movement
of tectonic plates
in Europe and Africa and the collision course they have
been on, in
addition to the existence of well-defined fault-lines
and geological
movements criss-crossing the area.
They also point out that, with the exception of a line
running across the
border into Slovenia in the north, Italy's seismic activity
is generally
confined to the Italian peninsula and its islands.
Fault lines
Thursday's earthquake had its epicentre near the central
town of
Casacalenda in the province of Campobasso.
It finds itself on the route of an East-West fault, which
is a result of
tectonic movements underneath the Adriatic.
Italian faults are not easy to identify, they are hidden
and many are
difficult to see, says
Gianluca Valensise, Italian Institute of Geophysics and
Vulcanology.
"The 1980 Irpinia earthquake [which killed over 2,500
people in the Naples
area] is quite different from Thursday's," said Dr Roger
Musson, head of
seismic hazard at the British Geological Survey.
As a result of the movement of the European tectonic plate
in a
south-easterly direction, the Earth's crust has broken
into
smaller pieces, and the Adriatic Sea is sitting in one
of those rocks.
"In the course of their movement, some of those rocks
are bending and this
creates faults with an east-westerly direction that caused
Thursday's
earthquake," Dr Musson told the BBC.
But the largest Italian earthquakes tend to align along
the crest of the
central and southern Apennines, according to professor
Gianluca Valensise
of the Italian Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology.
There is an alignment - running from Genoa in the north
to Messina in the
south - that has been responsible for major earthquakes,
Professor
Valensise told BBC News Online, and all major tremors
will sooner or later
concentrate along that line.
"However, while seismicity concentrates there, potentially
active
lineaments occur elsewhere."
Hard to predict
"But we learn of earthquakes after they have happened.
Italian faults are
not easy to identify, they are hidden and many are difficult
to see."
Seismic activity in Sicily, Professor Valensise said,
was particularly hard
to predict - it could not be explained by observing the
Apenninic belt.
The Italian Government has declared a state of emergency
in parts of the
island, after a series of earthquakes accompanying the
eruption of Mount
Etna forced about 1,000 people flee their homes.
But Professor Valensise said the Campobasso earthquake
was unlikely to have
been caused by the Etna eruptions - "the two are too
far away" - even
though a volcano is caused by the same types of fractures
in the Earth's
crust as those bringing about earthquakes.