Italy thankful as second major quake passes without fatalities

For the second time in two months, central Italy on Thursday morning woke up to the frightening impact of yet another earthquake. However, unlike the August 24th earthquake at Amatrice, in which 298 people died, this latest "shake" claimed no lives but rather did widespread damage, leaving 4,000 to 5,000 people homeless.

Visiting Camerino, a university centre and an earthquake-struck town which has been 80 per cent destroyed, prime minister Matteo Renzi promised central government aid for the expensive reconstruction process.

“The earthquake is a really tough moment for us but Italy is standing resolute, we won’t abandon the citizens, we’re stronger, we will get over this. Italy won’t be stopped by an earthquake and I am here to tell you that the entire country is at your side.”

Set aside €40 million

Mr Renzi went on to say that his government had already set aside €40 million for the reconstruction process. In reality, Mr Renzi finds himself in the ironic situation whereby the government decree which would release funds for the August earthquake in Amatrice has yet to be approved in parliament.

He indicated that he would introduce an amendment to that decree in order to insert this most recent earthquake into the reconstruction calculations.

Although the area struck on Wednesday night is situated just 40-50km north of Amatrice, experts yesterday suggested that this latest seismic activity is the product of a new fault line.

The epicentre of Wednesday night’s tremors was in the province of Macerata, with the towns of Camerino, Castel Santangelo Sul Nera, Precci, Visso and Ussita being hardest hit.

One of the biggest problems experienced yesterday was that the ground continued to shake, with the whole area being rocked by a series of aftershocks of different strengths. Given the aftershocks, thousands of people last night chose to leave their homes, sleeping in their cars.

Heavy rain for much of Wednesday night and yesterday morning made life difficult for the townspeople, slowing the recovery and clean-up operation as well as bringing down the temperature.

Furthermore, local authorities are now worried that further rainfall will cause landslides of the sort which prompted the closure yesterday of many roads, including the traffic artery, the Via Salaria. Fortunately, the weather forecast for the next few days is good, with little rain expected.

Abandoned their houses

Local people point out that, ironically, it was the very nature of Wednesday night’s successive tremors which probably saved lives. Following the first shake of 5.4 on the Richter scale just after 7pm local time, a majority of people were so frightened that they abandoned their houses, offices and shops.

When the second, stronger and potentially lethal tremor of 5.9 came two hours later, prompting the collapse of a number of buildings, people were already out on the street, in positions of relative safety.

Mr Renzi conceded last night that the rehousing of thousands of homeless in solid houses rather than tented villages has to be the relief programme’s first priority.

Given that temperatures in the Macerata area will soon be down to zero at night, a different solution will have to be found, he said.

This is the sixth major earthquake to strike Italy in the past 20 years following those of Umbria in 1997, Molise in 2002, L’Aquila in 2009, Emilia Romagna in 2012 and Amatrice this summer.