I don't think the news reports are exaggerated. It was a major earthquake, at least in the context of how it affected the medieval buildings in the area.
hmm. Its unfortunate. As far as I know central Italy was bombed heavily in WWII. A lot of the medieval ruins were destroyed then. I hope this hasn't effected what they have left over.
Strucurally speaking, considering the magnitude of the quake, which was not that much in my opinion, the results are pathetic. They really need to invest in retrofitting.
Sure, old stone masonry and brick masonry buildings can be improved by retrofitting. But that approach really will only ever apply to significant buildings, not all the old buildings in Europe, Asia, etc.
At latest ,179 dead,1500 injured, 100,000 homeless.In 1980 they passed strict laws on new construction for earthquake resistance.However there are buildings there at least 700years old ! A scientist had predicted the earthquake measuring things like radon which was increasing along with tremers since January !.Unfortunately he was muzzled so as not to panic the peaple !! This will become a big story.Italians also have a fatalistic attitude when it comes to earthquakes !
I heard from radio station, a repoter was saying some modern structures (built over the last 20-30 years) suffered worse damages than the historical structures. Don't know how true it is.
The earthquake, Italy's deadliest since 1980, left a political scandal as rescue workers looked for hundreds of people feared trapped in the rubble. Only last week, Italy's Civil Protection Agency dismissed a seismologist's warnings that the mountainous Abruzzo region, whose capital is L'Aquila, was about to get hit with a massive earthquake.
The seismologist, Giampaolo Giuliani, works for the National Institute of Astrophysics and was monitoring seismic activity and levels of radon, a naturally occurring gas in the soil, to predict earthquakes. A month ago, vans with loudspeakers drove through L'Aquila repeating Mr. Giuliani's predictions. The city government was angered by his warnings and forced him to remove them from the Internet.
On March 31, Italy's Major Risks Committee held a meeting in L'Aquila at which various scientists played down Mr. Giuliani's disaster prediction, saying it was impossible to predict earthquakes with any accuracy. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi visited L'Aquila yesterday and repeated the line, saying there was "no scientific evidence" that a quake was imminent.
Sad news. Why to set up monitoring agency then ignore its warning. At least some contingency plan shall be in place if does not want to disturb the general public for potential fals alarms.
World trade center, Kartrina, recent economic meltdown, don't they share some similarities?
Muffling scientists by politicians is not unheard of. Same thing happened to Jim Berkland after he predicted the 1980 La Paloma Earthquake in Frisco. Pathetic, truly pathetic.
This is the same mindset depicted in the original movie "Jaws" where the local economy is more important to local politicians than the safety of the residents.
There are a lot of natural indicators to earthquakes, not always 100 percent reliable, but are better than nothing. We just have to listen.
Latest from the internet - I copied a portion of the article. Note the downgrading of Monday's quake from a 6.3 to a 5.8. This article is regarding today's aftershock.
"Seismologists in Italy and the United States could not immediately assign a magnitude to Tuesday's quake. The APcom news agency said it was between 5.5. and 5.7 on the Richter scale. The quake that struck Monday was 5.8-magnitude."
And this damage is from only a 5.8... God help them if they saw a 7.
Those of you who say this was not a very large earthquake obviously live in places which have very large quakes. It is all relative to the built environment as to whether a quake is severe or not.
