According to a New York Times story, earthquakes, including one estimated at 6.2 magnitude, have struck the towns of Amatrice and Accumoli in Italy's Rieti province and Pescara del Tronto in Ascoli Piceno province. In the latter town, two people were killed. The mayor of Accumoli Amatrice declared that "half the town no longer exists." The towns lie about 100 miles (160 km) from Rome.
takyon: BBC. USGS: M6.2 and M5.5.
Update: Death toll revised up to 120.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Wednesday August 24 2016, @06:26AM
I felt one of the shock waves clearly (I am near Venice, in a 5 story building), because it lasted for several seconds. Did not give it much attention (wrong, I should have at the very minimum worn something to resist outside and unlocked the door) because there had been some local quake recently, so I thought it was a small thing here.
We have decent structures for helping quake victims, in fact they are so good that immigrants tried to pass for quake victims so they could have hi-end camping accommodation and free meals. The problem is that in some cases (L'Aquila) there seems not to be much political desire for restoring.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by r1348 on Wednesday August 24 2016, @09:38AM
Did not feel anything here in Milan, but again I live on the first floor and I was sleeping...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @09:26PM
North East of Rome here, 9th floor of a 14 high building. Of the two main shocks we could experience from here the 3:36 one woke me up and the other one, about one hour later, although of lighter intensity was still bad enough to make furniture squeak.
My best wishes and condolences to the poor souls who were hit by such a tragedy.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday August 24 2016, @02:42PM
It's OK, as long as you're not a member of the Commissione Nazionale dei Grandi Rischi you should be perfectly safe.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @06:33AM
OK now this is progress, but what we need to do is make sure these quakes happen far enough apart so they don't show up on anybody's Breaking News cycle. That's step one. The timing of the things. Step two is target selection. The quakes will coincidentally wipe out towns full of poor people. Decimating the population will ensure a large enough stockpile of money for rich people without resorting to socialism. Step three is profit as usual.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @07:20AM
Never a good combination.
After the Whittier Narrows quake (a low-6 magnitude event in the mid 1980s) there were some photos of cars that were parked beside an old brick wall.
Well, it used to be a wall.
Now it was a pile of rubble on top of some smashed-up cars.
If you want to look on the bright side, these folks now have some of the tear-down done, so they can build there again--this time using the knowledge engineers and architects have acquired through the years.
I'm wondering what the count of non-lethal-but-serious injuries will be.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday August 24 2016, @09:51AM
It was the mayor of Amatrice who said "half the town no longer exists."
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday August 24 2016, @12:34PM
Yes, it was. And... corrected! Thanks for pointing it out!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 24 2016, @02:55PM
Beautiful region, lovely countryside, and lovely villages there too (I visited Sulmona only months after the L'Aquila quakes); lets hope the Italian government directs all that lovely EU money that we tax payers contribute in the appropriate direction for short-term aid and eventual restoration work. Shit, I just read what I wrote, and realised how stupid it was.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_L%27Aquila_earthquake#Controversy_on_reconstruction_and_criminality )
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