Italy earthquake kills at least 120

The earthquake that struck central Italy on Wednesday has killed at least 120 people, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said.

Most of the quakes are so negligible they are barely felt in the centuries-old communities that dot the landscape, registering only on electronic sensors. But on Wednesday a deadly tremor struck, killing at least 120 people and flattening hundreds of buildings.

With other such disasters seen as inevitable in the future, experts say Italy could do more to protect life and property. "Italy can expect an earthquake with a magnitude above 6.3 every 15 years on average. That should encourage a greater culture of seismic prevention and civil protection," said Fabio Tortorici, head of studies at Italy's Geological Institute.

Wednesday's quake measured 6.2 and hit just 6 miles (10 km) beneath the surface of the earth, a shallow depth that multiplied its destructive force, according to the US."The Apennine mountain belt which runs down the spine of Italy is gradually being stretched in a northeast-southwest direction by tectonic forces at a rate of around 3 mm (0.12 inches) per year," said Richard Walters, lecturer in Earth Sciences at Britain's Durham University.

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"This slow stretching causes stress to build up in the earth's crust, which is then released in earthquakes just like this one," he said. It was the most destructive such disaster in Italy since 2009, when a quake killed more than 300 people, left 55,000 homeless and devastated the 13th century city of L'Aquila.

That tragedy once again revealed the fragility of Italy's infrastructure, with both modern and ancient buildings, including churches, hospitals and a college dormitory in the area ravaged by the shaking earth.

A 2008 survey by civil protection experts said only 14 per cent of buildings in the most vulnerable swathe of the country met seismic-safety standards. That same year, new norms were brought in demanding a much higher standard of construction for new buildings, but that still left the vast majority of homes and offices exposed to seismic activity.

A report released last month by Italy's national insurance association said two-thirds of the country's municipalities were in earthquake zones, with a similar proportion of its buildings built without any earthquake protection.

"Some things have changed, but more could be done," the Geology Institute's Tortorici told Reuters. "The real problem lies with properties built before the 1970s when there were zero earthquake norms. The country was covered in... read full story