Dozens of aftershocks hit northeastern Italy overnight and yesterday morning as thousands of jittery survivors spent the night in tent camps after the region’s second killer quake in days.
Tuesday’s quake killed at least 17 people and injured 350, just nine days after a similar disaster killed six people and left thousands homeless.
Residents in cities across northern and central Italy, including Pisa and Venice, rushed into the streets in panic when the quake struck 60km east of Parma at 9am, as many were arriving for work.
Photo: AFP
Just a few hours later, already shaken residents endured a terrifying five-minute ordeal when the region was struck by three tremors of between 5.1 and over 5.3 magnitude, sparking panic and bringing down weakened buildings.
A 65-year-old woman was the last person to be pulled alive from the rubble on Tuesday night, after firemen heard her cries. She was saved by sheltering under a kitchen table as the five-story building in the town of Cavezzo collapsed.
Workers at a destroyed precision-mechanics factory near Modena where three of their colleagues died, told how they ran for their lives as the ground shook, ripping the building in two and sending masonry crashing to the ground.
Photo: EPA
“Everything happened so fast, in about seven to eight seconds. I don’t even remember. I ran out carrying the piece I was working on and I saw everything crumble,” said one worker who gave his name as Daniel.
“The quake was so violent,” he said, trembling with shock, adding that he feared being trapped in the shaking building.
As the dust began to settle in the moments following the quake, those who had made it to safety realized that three people — an Italian, as well as an Indian and a Moroccan — had been killed in the collapse.
“I’m grief-stricken, speechless. I have no tears left to shed,” Daniel added, saying he had worked with the dead men at the close-knit Meta factory in San Felice sul Panaro for years.
One victim had been living in a tent at a camp since the magnitude 6 quake on May 20 which killed six people and left about 7,000 living in makeshift dwellings, after many homes and historic buildings were reduced to rubble.
“I have to leave the building, we’re being hit by a long, powerful tremor. I have to get out,” a civil protection agency spokesman in Mantua said as one of the tremors struck.
“Everything’s collapsed, it’s chaos, buildings across the town are down,” a fireman in the tiny town of Cavezzo told Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Officials in the Emilia Romagna region said over 5,000 people had been evacuated from their homes, adding to the thousands already homeless after the May 20 quake.
The national geographics institute said yesterday the region had been hit overnight by a series of quakes and many feared the nightmare was not over.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most