Monday, February 8, 2010
L’Aquila, Italy - An earthquake shook Italy early in the morning on 6th April 2009, causing 307 people to die and 1,500 people to suffer injuries, making it the deadliest earthquake to hit Italy since the Irpinia earthquake in 1980. The earthquake, rated 5.8 on the Richter scale and 6.3 on the moment magnitude scale, was felt throughout Italy. Its epicenter was L’Aquila.
The earthquake caused around 65,000 people to lose their homes, and damage to 3,000 to 11,000 buildings in L’Aquila. It even caused a few deaths in other countries such as Macedonia. The hospital in L’Aquila, where most people who suffered injuries were put, suffered damage from the 4.8 aftershocks, which followed the main earthquake just an hour after. Altogether, 26 cities and towns are believed to have been damaged. Phone and power lines were down, and bridges and roads have been closed as a precaution.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who called off a scheduled trip to Moscow to survey the region by helicopter, declared a state of emergency, promising a “record number of rescuers”. A field hospital was being set up to help local medical services, he stated. The rescue service was stretched to breaking point trying to reach all the affected people. The army and civil protection units from around Italy joined also the effort.
Italy, which lies between two fault lines, has been experiencing powerful earthquakes, mainly in the south of the country. Compression between the African plate, the Anatolian plate and the Eurasian plate, which formed Italy's Apennine mountains long ago, pushed the mountains into the air. However, the western side of those mountains was slid away when the plates shifted, causing the earthquake, and gravity pulled it down. The collapse of these mountains in the earthquake sent tremors and aftershocks that were felt far away. Before the main earthquake hit, there where minor tremors in the city, but none of them bothered to evacuate, so, when the main earthquake hit, many citizens were still in their beds. They should have evacuated the city earlier when they felt minor tremors and alerted the government to evacuate other cities and tows around there. If they had done that, there will be damages to the buildings, but the number of casualties will reduce. So, if a city feels tremors, they should evacuate immediately so as to reduce the number of casualties. Done by: Ho Shuen Sec-1 Diligence Credits Websites RACHEL DONADIO and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/world/europe/07italy.html, extracted 07-02-2010 Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_L, extracted 07-02-2010 BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7984867.stm, extracted 07-02-2010 John Hooper and Peter Walker, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/06/italy-earthquake-laquila, extracted 07-02-2010 Alyson Hurt and Kathleen Masterson / NPR, http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2009/apr/italy-earthquake/, extracted 07-02-2010Labels: School stuff
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