A magnitude 6.1 natural disaster struck central Italy early Wednesday, with reports of damaged buildings and blackouts near the epicenter Rieti and residents fleeing their homes and running into the streets.
Advertisement
Photo: A man reacts to his damaged home after a strong quake hit Amatrice, Italy, on August 24, 2016.
Italy’s quake institute, INGV, said the epicenter was near Accumoli and Amatrice, which lie between the larger towns of Ascoli Piceno to the northeast and Rieti to the southwest.
“The town isn’t here any more”, said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of the hardest-hit town, Amatrice. They’re small in size but popular as tourist destinations – and August is a prime time for vacations in the area.
“A lot of the officials are lamenting that these are tiny towns but their populations swell in the summer, specifically because they are very sought-after vacation getaways”, Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield told NPR.
The towns in the region are old, with roots in medieval Italy, and some have been “completely razed”, Winfield says: “The buildings are old and they just crumbled”.
“In the middle of the night there was a awful shaking and the whole building collapsed”.
The magnitude 6 quake struck at 3:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome where residents of the capital felt a long swaying followed by aftershocks.
“One of the towns worst hit is Amatrice”, Livesay reports.
Rescue workers used helicopters to pluck survivors to safety in more isolated villages cut off by landslides and rubble.
Rescuers walk past the bell tower with the clock showing the time of the quake in Amatrice, central Italy.
The natural disaster caused damage to towns in three regions – Umbria, Lazio and Marche.
She was staying at a farmhouse just over 50 miles from the epicenter of the quake, and woke up to “very intense” shaking.
“The thing that I keep remembering was this awful noise”.
“What can I tell you?”
Italy’s health minister said many children were among the victims of the quake.
With residents advised not to go back into their homes, temporary campsites were being set up in Amatrice and Accumoli as authorities looked to find emergency accommodation for more than 2,000 people.
People stood stunned on the roadside, coated with a film of dust from the quake, still dressed in the pajamas they were wearing when they fled their houses.
The ancient town of Amatrice, where an annual food festival celebrating the town’s customary spaghetti that typically lures thousands of tourists was to take place in three days, was reduced to rubble with three-quarters of the buildings demolished by the quake.
Pope Francis said he was almost at a loss for words. INGV reported 150 aftershocks in the 12 hours following the initial quake, the strongest measuring 5.5.
“Hearing the mayor of Amatrice saying that the town doesn’t exist any more and knowing that there are children among the victims has moved me deeply”, he said. ‘I just managed to put a pillow on my head and I wasn’t hit luckily, just slightly injured my leg’.
“Another woman, sitting in front of her destroyed home with a blanket over her shoulders, said she didn’t know what had become of her loved ones”.
“It was one of the most lovely towns of Italy and now there’s nothing left”, she said, too distraught to give her name. I don’t know what we’ll do, ” another victim told AP.
As the August sun turned into a night-time chill, residents, civil protection workers and even priests dug with shovels, bulldozers and their bare hands to reach survivors.
The Apennines are “tectonically and geologically complex”, the USGS writes, and the region has experienced several major earthquakes.
Advertisement
“This was an natural disaster. that is considered a very shallow quake”, said Jessica Turner of the USGS.
