A series of aftershocks struck towns in the region, toppling scores of buildings, according to reports.
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” ‘The whole ceiling fell but did not hit me, ‘ marveled resident Maria Gianni”. ‘I just managed to put a pillow on my head and I wasn’t hit luckily, just slightly injured my leg’.
A man cries into his hands in Amatrice. A statement said the decision was taken as a “sign of the pope’s concrete proximity to the people affected by the quake”.
Sergio Pirozzi, mayor of Amatrice, told local media that “most of the town is gone”. “Houses are no longer there”.
A strong natural disaster brought down buildings in central Italy early on Wednesday, trapping residents and sending others fleeing into the streets, with at least six people believed killed.
The town’s Grifoni hospital also was destroyed. Other fatalities were reported in the nearby towns of Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto.
Beside Bizzoni was local handyman Gabriele Dozza, who watched rescuers picking through a small mountain of rubble across the street.
Mayor Stefano Petrucci told reporters: “We have a tragedy here”.
Fabrizio Curcio, the head of Italy’s civil protection agency, said the quake was on par with the L’Aquilla quake.
“The Apennine mountains in central Italy have the highest seismic hazard in Western Europe and earthquakes of this magnitude are common”, noted Dr Richard Walters, a lecturer in Earth sciences at Durham University in Britain. “In the corridor we met a doctor who tried to calm us down as much he could”, she told the Corriere della Sera, an Italian daily. “That is the good news”. They call the phones of missing residents and, if someone answers, rescue workers learn their location and attempt to reach them.
“In hard times, Italy knows what to do”, he said.
It said the quake struck near the Umbrian city of Norcia, whose picturesque historic centre is a popular tourist site. Italy’s quake institute INGV registered it at 6.0 and put the epicentre further south, closer to Accumoli and Amatrice.
Italy’s civil protection service says the preliminary toll from Wednesday’s 6 magnitude quake is 38.
“At that shallowness and magnitude of 6.2, we’re going to expect lots of aftershocks for next several hours and maybe the next several days”.
“Listen, I know it’s not nice to say but if you need to pee you just do it”, he said. “I could hear other dogs in other apartments”. The region is 100 miles southwest of Rome, but the awakened people in the ancient city and could be felt as far away as Bologna in the north and Naples in the south, the New York Times reported. Those tremors, the country’s deadliest in nearly three decades, damaged thousands of buildings in and around the medieval city of L’Aquila and caused billions of euros in damage.
Facebook issued a safety check for those potentially affected by the quake.
People stand along a road following a quake in Amatrice, central Italy, August 24, 2016.
Zaba told Polish PAP agency that the African Plate is moving northwards at the speed of up to 5 centimeters (2 inches) a year.
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And perhaps the most well-known, and devastating, event in the region occurred in April 2009 when a 6.3-magnitude quake struck near the town of L’Aquila.
