Italy Again

Well they do have a history of earthquakes and Mt. Vesuvious has turned that part of Italy into a time capsule and it could happen again.
 
Feels like the Stone Age in Central Italy...
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'We've returned to the stone age': Quake levels Italian town
Nov 1,`16 -- Some houses are collapsed outright, pancaked piles of stones and plaster. A pair of skis stick out. Some are cracked open neatly, exposing living rooms frozen in time.
The central Italian mountain village of Castelluccio di Norcia, among the most heavily hit by Sunday's earthquake, is known for the beautiful blossoms of its lentil fields and its historic charm. Now it's a ghost town. With the roads cut off, almost all of the 300 inhabitants were evacuated by helicopter. They all survived after an earlier quake in August prompted them to move into safer housing like camper vans or containers. But a small group of 13 hardy souls refuses to leave. Mostly farmers, they want to stay close to their cattle, sheep and horses - their livelihood, without which they would truly have nothing left to come back for. "Practically we've returned to the stone age," said Augusto Coccia, 65. He was among the farmers housed in containers in the town square, eating breakfast, when the earthquake struck. It bounced the containers about and filled the air with a thick fog of dust.

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Scaffolded houses and rubble in the village of Pretare, near Arquata del Tronto, Italy, Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016. Earthquake aftershocks gave central Italy no respite on Tuesday, haunting a region where thousands of people were left homeless and frightened by a massive weekend tremor that razed centuries-old towns.​

The 6.6-magnitude tremor, the country's most powerful in 36 years, pulled down buildings and historic churches in villages across the Appenine mountains. In Castelluccio, the ground is now as much as 70 centimeters (two feet) lower, according to the national geophysics institute. This town's plight was worsened by the fact that the roads were cut off. Rescue helicopters brought in the bare necessities - food and water - on Sunday but little else. Coccia and the others who stayed behind cook under the open sky with gas canisters. They have no heating, electricity or constant water supply. The temperature drops to as low as minus 6 Celsius (20 Fahrenheit) at night. "The medical supplies were delivered to us today. It's been three days since we requested them but it's very hard to get them to us," he said.

Besides helicopter, the only way to get to Castelluccio is by four-by-four through an hour and a half of rough terrain. Some residents of the area made the trip, as did forest rangers, with whom The Associated Press traveled. Among those making their way to Castelluccio on Tuesday was Vincenzo Brandimarte, 63. He had recently built an inn here using modern earthquake-resistant planning - and it was one of the very few buildings that did not collapse or crack. "Today I began to cry when I saw the town with my own eyes," he said. "This is worse than war. If it had been a real war maybe the town wouldn't have been destroyed to this extent." As of Tuesday, 15,000 people from the region some 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Rome were being given shelter. That's on top of 2,000 who remain displaced from a first quake in August, which left 300 dead.

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Explaining new jolts rattling earthquake-ravaged Italy
Nov 1,`16 -- A wave of earthquakes has rocked central Italy in recent months, shattering medieval towns and destroying ancient homes, churches and landmarks. The latest - a magnitude 6.6 - over the weekend struck a cluster of historic mountain towns, the most powerful temblor to hit Italy in more than three decades. The new shaking comes as the region reeled from a deadly magnitude 6.2 quake in August that killed 300 people and a pair of strong quakes last week.[/]
How are the quakes related? Do they foreshadow an even bigger temblor? Scientists are studying the relationship of the quakes, which occurred on several faults in the Apennines mountain range. A look at earthquake terminology:

Q: How are earthquakes defined?

A: An earthquake is generally characterized as a foreshock, main shock or aftershock. The largest quake in a series is the main shock. Foreshocks are quakes that strike before the main shock along the same fault. Aftershocks are smaller quakes that rattle the same general area following the main event. Aftershocks generally become less powerful and less frequent over time. Not all quakes have foreshocks, but moderate and strong quakes are followed by a series of aftershocks. Scientists don't know beforehand what type of quake it'll be until the shaking has played out.

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A destroyed house in the village of Pretare, near Arquata del Tronto, Italy, Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016. Earthquake aftershocks gave central Italy no respite on Tuesday, haunting a region where thousands of people were left homeless and frightened by a massive weekend tremor that razed centuries-old towns.​

Q: What about the Italy quakes?

A: The Italy quakes are under investigation, but it appears the previous quakes including the deadly August temblor were foreshocks to Sunday's quake, said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Paul Earle. While the latest quake was the largest in the sequence, no deaths were reported because thousands of people had evacuated to shelters and hotels after the earlier quakes. Earle said the chances of an even larger quake striking the same area are low.

Q: Can a main shock become a foreshock?

A: Days before the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, several strong quakes including a magnitude 7.3 rattled the region. That quake had been considered the main shock until a magnitude 9 struck off the coast of Japan, generating a tsunami that swamped the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Q: How long can aftershocks last?

A: Aftershocks can last for days, weeks or even years depending on the strength of the main quake. Recent disasters - such as Fukushima and the 2004 magnitude 9.1 quake in Indonesia that triggered an Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries - have been followed by tens of thousands of aftershocks.

News from The Associated Press
 
Recent earthquake triggers avalanche...

Four children and woman rescued, two days after Italy avalanche
January 20, 2017 - Four children and a woman were pulled clear on Friday from the wreckage of a mountain hotel in central Italy flattened two days earlier by an avalanche, the national fire service said.
A further five people had been located, trapped under tonnes of snow and debris, and rescuers said they would work through the night to free them while the search continued for other possible survivors. There were more than 30 people in the luxury Hotel Rigopiano on Wednesday afternoon when a wall of snow and toppled trees smashed into the isolated building. So far two bodies have been recovered from the site, officials said. Fire service spokesman Luca Cari said an initial group of six people were found alive on Friday morning, with fire teams swiftly managing to pull two of them -- a mother and her young son -- to safety from a tangled mass of smashed concrete.

Rescuers clapped and shouted "bravo" as the pair were brought to the surface, led to nearby stretchers and carried by helicopter to hospital for a health check. "They survived thanks to this bubble of air that formed inside the hotel," said Marco Bini, a rescue worker from Italy's finance police. Shortly after the rescue a further four people were found trapped in the rubble and, as darkness fell over the mountains, three children were pulled to safety. "They are all alive and well," Cari told Reuters. "The rescue operation is very long and difficult ... We are dealing with reinforced concrete that has collapsed."

MOUNTAINS OF SNOW

The disaster struck during a driving snowstorm, hours after four earthquakes with a magnitude above 5 rattled the region. As much as 5 meters (16 ft) of snow covered much of what was left of the Rigopiano hotel, said Walter Milan, a member of the Alpine Rescue service at the scene. Only sections of the spa and swimming area were intact, he said. Two men outside the hotel managed to escape the avalanche and raise the alarm, but the first rescuers only managed to reach the scene by ski some 11 hours later, with the access roads blocked by snow and fallen trees. An investigation has been opened by a court in Pescara amid accusations that the emergency response was slow.

Giampiero Parete, a chef who was a guest in the hotel, had gone to his car to get headache pills for his wife when the avalanche struck. His wife and his eight-year-old son were amongst those saved on Friday, Italian media said. There was no word about the fate of his six-year-old daughter. Parete contacted his boss, Quintino Marcella, just after the avalanche hit, asking him to raise help. "He told me: 'The hotel has collapsed'," Marcella said in an interview with RAI state TV, adding that the local prefecture did not immediately believe him. He kept calling until he was assured help was on the way some two hours later.

Four children and woman rescued, two days after Italy avalanche
 
Children among survivors rescued from avalanche...
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Children among people extracted from Italian hotel
Sun, Jan 22, 2017 - GAMES ROOM: Reports said four children survived after all being pulled from the same room in the hotel, which had about 30 people in it when an avalanche hit
Four people were pulled alive from the wreckage of a luxury hotel that on Wednesday was struck by a deadly avalanche triggered by a series of earthquakes, bringing the number of survivors to nine, the Italian fire service said yesterday. The two men and two women were extracted from the shattered ruins of Hotel Rigopiano overnight after hours of painstaking digging by firefighters, who were having to move cautiously for fear that buried air pockets might collapse.

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Rescue personnel work in the area of a hotel in Rigopiano, Italy, on Friday that was hit by an avalanche on Wednesday.​

Four children and a woman were rescued on Friday, dug out from under tonnes of snow and debris in a remote valley in mountainous central Italy. Reports said that the four children had survived because they were in a games room at the time of the avalanche, while an entire family of four was among the survivors. Fire service spokesman Luca Cari told reporters that the bodies of two women and a man were also recovered during the night, bringing the known death toll to four. About 16 people were still unaccounted for, while nine had been rescued.

A wall of snow smashed into the spa hotel on Wednesday afternoon, obliterating the four-story building and spreading debris for hundreds of meters down the valley in the Gran Sasso park in the heart of Italy. About 30 people were in the hotel at the time. Italian media reported early yesterday that a number of other voices had been heard under the rubble, but that it was proving hard to establish exactly where they were. There was no immediate confirmation of this from the emergency services. Rescue teams would continue to work night and day until everyone was accounted for, Cari said.

Children among people extracted from Italian hotel - Taipei Times
 
Help called for before avalanche...
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Hotel director called for help hours before Italian avalanche
Tue January 24, 2017 - Reports: Prosecutors launch probe after hotel director asked authorities to intervene; Death toll at Rigopiano Hotel reaches 14 dead, with 15 people still missing
With 14 people now dead after an avalanche wrecked an Italian hotel, news reports emerged that its director urgently called for assistance just hours before disaster struck last week. In an email to local officials, the director said guests at the Rigopiano Hotel were "terrified," roads were blocked due to heavy snow and phones were out of service. Prosecutors investigating the disaster are now examining his call for help.

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An aerial view shows the roof and top floor of the three-story Hotel Rigopiano buried in snow after the avalanche struck at the foot of Gran Sasso mountain in central Italy​

The Reuters news agency reported Tuesday that rescuers recovered five bodies -- three men and two women -- hours before the first funerals for those killed were due to be held. The recovery brought the death toll to 14, according to Italy's national fire brigade, with 15 still missing. Eleven people have been rescued.

'We ask you to intervene'

The four-star hotel at the foot of the Gran Sasso mountain about 135 kilometers (85 miles) northeast of Rome was buried in snow Wednesday after a series of earthquakes. Bruno Di Tommaso, director of the hotel, sent an email to provincial authorities in Pescara -- the main town in the area -- plus the local police and mayor of nearby Farindola after 2 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Italian news agency ANSA. Di Tommaso was not at the hotel at the time. The avalanche hit later around 4.30 p.m. Wednesday.

Italy avalanche: Hotel director called for help hours before disaster - CNN.com
 

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