Officials in central Italy began early yesterday to assess the damage caused by a pair of strong earthquakes in the same region of central Italy hit by a deadly earthquake in August, as an appeal went out for temporary housing adequate for the cold mountain temperatures.
Thousands of people spent the night in their cars following the pair of quakes that struck late in the evening, sending residents into the streets in pouring rain, too late for authorities to come up with adequate shelter.
A series of small shocks overnight, including two registering magnitudes above 4 before dawn, further unsettled residents.
Photo: Reuters
The morning after the quakes, there remained no reports of serious injuries or signs of people trapped in rubble. Civil Protection Department head Fabrizio Curcio said it appeared that the situation “is not as catastrophic” as it could have been.
A 73-year-old man died of a heart attack, possibly brought on by the quakes, local authorities told the ANSA news agency.
Mayors of towns scattered in the mountain region spanning the Umbria and Marche regions say many more homes were rendered uninhabitable, on top of those damaged in the August quake, while historic structures that survived previous temblors had succumbed this time.
Camerino Mayor Gianluca Pasqui said the town’s historic bell tower had collapsed, but added that reconstruction work after a 6.1 quake in 1997 appeared to have contributed to the absence of serious injury.
“I can say that the city didn’t have victims. That means that even if there is a lot of damage probably the reconstruction in the historic center was done in a correct and adequate manner. Because otherwise, we would be speaking of something else,” Pasqui told Sky TG24.
Umbria President Catiuscia Marini told RAI state television that officials were scrambling to come up with temporary housing, mindful that with winter approaching and temperatures dropping, tents cannot be deployed as they were after the August quake. The concern for the predominantly elderly population of the remote mountain region was repeated by other officials.
Marini said that after the quakes many people would be fearful of staying even in hotels deemed safe, and that solutions like campers were being considered.
“We don’t have injured, we have people who are very afraid, who have anxiety, especially the elderly,” she said.
In Visso, Mayor Giuliano Passaglini said he was only able to provide shelter for a couple hundred residents overnight, and most people spent the night in their cars. About 800 people were without shelter in Visso.
Firefighters were helping residents to retrieve objects from their homes in the red zone. Most were intact, showing only cracks.
The first quake struck at 7:10pm and carried a magnitude of 5.4, but the second one a little more than two hours later was eight times stronger at 6.1, according to the US Geological Survey.
Officials said the fact that people had already left their homes when the second quake hit probably saved lives.
“Many houses collapsed,” the mayor of hard-hit Ussita, Marco Rinaldi, told Sky TG24. “The facade of the church collapsed. By now I have felt many earthquakes. This is the strongest of my life. It was something terrible.”
Rinaldi said two elderly people were rescued from their home, where they were trapped, and appeared to be in good condition.
Calling it “apocalyptic,” he said the town and its hamlets were “finished.”
In addition to the town’s church, the parish and other buildings had suffered heavy damage, he said.
A church crumbled in the ancient Perugian town of Norcia, famed for its Benedictine monastery and its cured meats. A bell-tower damaged on Aug. 24 fell and crushed a building in Camerino, ANSA reported.
Elsewhere, buildings were damaged, though many were in zones that were declared off-limits after the Aug. 24 quake that flattened parts of three towns.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who cut short a visit to southern Italy to monitor the quake response, tweeted “all of Italy is embracing those hit once again.”
The pope said in a message on Twitter that he is praying for the people hit by the quake.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Cannabis-based medicines have shown little evidence of effectiveness for treating most mental health and substance-use disorders, according to a large review of past studies published in a major medical journal on Monday. Medical use of cannabinoids has been expanding, including in the US, Canada and Australia, where many patients report using cannabis products to manage conditions such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and sleep problems. Researchers reviewed data from 54 randomized clinical trials conducted between 1980 and May last year involving 2,477 participants for their analysis published in The Lancet. The studies assessed cannabinoids as a primary treatment for mental disorders or substance-use
NATIONWIDE BLACKOUT: US President Donald Trump cut off Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba, strangling the Caribbean island’s already antiquated grid Cuba’s national electric grid collapsed on Monday, the nation’s grid operator said, leaving about 10 million people without power amid a US-imposed oil blockade that has crippled the already obsolete generation system. Grid operator UNE on social media said that it is investigating the causes of the blackout, the latest in a series of widespread outages that last for hours or days and that this weekend sparked a rare violent protest in the communist-run nation. Officials ruled out a major power plant failure, but had still not pinpointed the root cause of the grid collapse, suggesting a problem with transmission. Officials said that
‘HEALTH ISSUE’: More than 250 women are hospitalized every day due to complications from unsafe abortions, and about three die, a study showed Jane had been bleeding heavily for days before finally seeking help, not from a hospital, but from the man who sold her the pills meant to end her six-week pregnancy. Abortions are strictly outlawed in the mainly Catholic Philippines, forcing women to turn to a patchwork of providers operating in the online shadows. While rare in practice, Philippine law allows for prison terms of up to six years for abortion patients and providers, leaving thousands of Filipinas to search for solutions in online forums where unlicensed sellers promote abortifacients. “It was very painful, as if my abdomen was being twisted,” said Jane, whose
RSS