THE DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE IN UMBRIA - AUGUST 24TH 2016.

It's been two months since my last post and I never anticipated I would be writing an article concerning an earthquake close to where we have our place in Italy. I'm at home in Lincolnshire at the moment, so when I came down for breakfast and switched on the TV I was shocked to see the devastation caused by the overnight earthquake in our own area of Umbria in central Italy. My first concern was for our friends Francis and Michael and Janice and Marcia - we were glad to get an online message from Francis that morning saying they had been woken by the quake at a quarter to four, that they felt the house sway a bit, and that they then went back to sleep. In the morning they were also shocked to see the effects of the quake with an epicentre south east of Perugia - only a matter of about 100 miles distant from where we are. TV reporters were saying the effects of the quake had been felt from Naples in the south as far north as Milan and beyond. We are also  relieved the impact in the area round Lake Trasimeno has been minimal. Francis and Michael later in the day kindly went round to check out our property and reported that all was fine with that too.

The epicentre of the Umbrian Quake was near the town of Amatrice
and measured 6.2 on the Richter scale. 

Having said all of that we are devastated by the impact of the earthquake in the mountainous areas around the towns of Amatrice and Norcia where whole villages have been razed to the ground and as I write this posting almost 250 are dead with more unaccounted for. Rescue workers, toiling in unsafe conditions, unstintingly continue to look for survivors - even though aftershocks make their task dangerous to say the least. I was impressed with the words of the Italian prime minister broadcasting to the nation and the world promising the very bext help possible to these damaged communities. I found myself praying for the victims and their families.

Earthquake in Umbria - 24th August 2016

Italy, as many of you will know, is particularly prone to earthquakes and there have been many up and down the whole country during recorded time as the map below shows. The Appenine mountains, which form a spine down the length of the peninsula, are relatively young in terms of geological time, just like the Alps. As such they are subject to the stresses and strains of movement as the plates beneath them move and the process of  mountain building continues. 

Earthquakes in Italy 461 BC - 1997 courtesy of Maps.com

The most susceptible zones are those coloured dark orange.
Umbria in the region of the Appenines clearly falls within one of those zones. 

The movement of one plate against another, over a long period of time, causes the production of fault lines and as pressures accumulate so something has to give - the result - an earthquake. This one measured 6.2 on the Richter scale and the epicentre, at a shallow level beneath the surface, produced the shock waves which have caused the devastation. Whereas vulcanologists often fare well at predicting eruptions of such Italian volcanoes as Stromboli and Etna on Sicily - seismologists the world over find it very difficult to predict quakes. A particular problem appears to relate to the area of the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west of the Italian peninsula where a trench beneath the sea is spreading thus exerting pressure on the Appennine range. More recent "trench migration" to the east of Italy, in the Adriatic Sea area, further complicates the problem and this Umbrian quake is related to it.

Who knows where and when the next quake in Italy will strike? Investigators will no doubt be eventually concentrating some of their efforts on looking at why a few buildings, old and new, survived the devastation in the affected areas. The Italian authorities and the seismic centre based at Perugia University will be working hard to encourage more buildings to be built with adequate earthquake protection. In the meantime lets hope that trapped people in Umbria who are still alive beneath the wreckage are rescued soon and that the survivors continue to be well looked after and cared for!!

Tonight's ITV news has just revealed a 14 year old English boy lost his life in the disaster - his parents are being treated in hospital. A very moving piece of film showed a little girl called Julia being taken alive from the wreckage after 15 hours beneath the rubble. Earthquakes continually inform us that the huge powers of nature have no regard for human life, but stories like these are are also a reminder of the nature of our own humanity!!

THERE ARE GETTING ON FOR A HUNDRED POSTS HERE WRITTEN OVER SEVERAL YEARS - I'D BE DELIGHTED IF YOU HAVE READ THIS ONE AND DECIDE TO BE A REGULAR FOLLOWER - IAN