Ah yes, I'm safe and sound, I appreciate your concern!
I work right in the epicenter area, but live 110 km away, so I was just waken up by my wife because of home rocking (it was 3:30 in the morning). I've never been too sensitive to earthshaking!
I won't go there for awhile, my office is damaged, city is closed to let the emergency guys do their work.
130 fatalities so far, over 1500 casualties.
Whole mountain villages destroyed, plus huge damage to historical churches, works of art and other landmark buildings.
The 5.8 Richter would have tickled Japan, California and probably Indonesia, but here it was destructive. Many buildings were old masonry structures, very vulnerable to earthquakes.
The area is highly seismic, with many active quaternary faults and and history of destructive events. I've been waiting for this earthquake for a while so I'm not surprised, it makes some impression though when it really happens.
The damage to structures followed the foreseen pattern: many old masonries crumbled down, seventies and earlier RC structures were damaged (the extent is not known yet), younger RC built with anti-seismic criteria are better off.
Recent strict seismic code wasn't used yet for design if not in very rare occasions.
Boy, the photos on tonight's news are really something. The destruction seems massive. Was this somewhat rare there? It seems like a lot of destruction to some very old buildings that have survived a long time in a seismic active area.
JAE,
I can't trecognize that building, an assessment on damage will sure take place but those cases remain big question marks. Even if built in the seventies it looks real bad.
The seismologists are saying that the shallow ipocenter concentrated the waves on a narrower solid angle so the damage was greater than the richter magnitude would suggest.
Most subsoil is dense gravel deposits, stiff clays, outcropping rock, so significant soil amplification phenomena are out in 99% of the cases involved. Topographic amplification and basin-edge effects might have contributed though.
They told me the building where my office was (late seventies) displays many non-structural failures, it is not clear wether the frame is sound or not. All is flooded, dangerous to get into so no way to retrieve my stuff (luckily I had no valuables there).
BigH, my family is allright although my wife couldn't sleep any longer yesterday night, no cracks at home, here on the coast there has been almost no damage at all.
jheidt,
it is a known fact that the mountainous backbone of the italian peninsula is seismically active, only sometimes people are stubborn. I say people, included politicians elected by people.
50 miles away there was a strong earthquake in 1915 which canceled a whole town, a single building was left. In the same event a neighborhood in L'Aquila was destroyed. In that same neighborhood they allowed later urban developmente to take place.
the historical centre wa almost destroyed in 1703, then no more strong quakes happened aside the effects of the 1915 quake, in a limited area. So the buildings you saw on pics are mostly post 1703, some of'em what was saved from before. The oldest was 12th century, probably destroyed now.
What should have been done and has never: an hazard assessment of all the masonry structures built before 1980, it's where most fatalities occurred.
Besides the historical center of the capital, L'Aquila, many small villages were all old masonry. Since there has been a long gap in seismic events in those specific areas, they simply made it up to now. Such a gap built up a false sense of security.
From recent news it would appear that only 2 RC buildings failed in the main town(the pic attached by JAE might be what's left of the main hotel, on of these );
that may be due either to inadequate design, flaws in the building procedure or soil dishomogeneities.
Taking another look at the photo JAE attached, the beam in the foreground looks like it may have slid off the corbel in the upper left of the photo. There doesnt' seem to be much rebar in the connections, maybe a precast building?
jheidt,
I cannot easily picture that frame, judging from JAE's posting date it might even be a shot of a previous quake in southern Italy (1981), media are known to produce archive images when fresh ones ain't ready. There are no precast residential buildings in L'Aquila.
What they told me today though is that more than 2 RC relatively large buildings collapsed, and that's sure something to think about.
Some of'em where above a known active fault, maybe just on the rupture zone.
Hi McCoy. A couple days ago, the news web sites here were making noise about a geologist? there, either a genius or a head case, who claimed to have predicted the earthquake, but was suppressed by the authorities. Have you heard anything about him there?
I'm trying to be open-minded about him and his methodology. Traveling (for a qualitative risk analysis) and not able to talk to my seismologist buddies. As is usually the case, the popular media that I have access to aren't able to explain anything technical.
Howard:
Aftershocks: nothing unusual, so far, energy is slowly dissipating. I live on the coast and very little damage is reported here. Wanted to go and have a check but my wifey spoke a resounding NO !
Dave,
the guy you mention (Mr. gianpaolo Giuliani) is not a geologist nor a physicist or engineer,he's a technical guy working for the underground physics lab in G.Sasso mountains.
He claims he invented this new radon-based prediction method. The whole country was speaking about him the day of the quake.
He was able to pinpoint many of the foreshocks, it is not very clear though if he was able to foresee the main shock since the authorities sued him for alarming the populace and he had to stay put.
To date, the authorities and the scientific environment in Italy do not recognize his method. May be he'll be summoned to Japan or America, but he got a raw deal here.
He should of course show his forewarnings were not random and can be replicated.
Attached, a pic of my (ex) office building in L'Aquila, a RC structure built in the seventies (no seismic engineering mthods applied), guys who witnessed building ops told me it was allright, good building practices.
You are right,
women can pretty much keep their guys in tow by very basic blackmailing...
I'm going to go eventually though, after all the wrecked buildings are not going anywhere.
This morning they told me the yellow building, my ex office has a damaged pillar, so retrieving the stuff inside is going to take some.
University guys, the 'quake hunters', started the local amplification studies, curious to see the outcome
One of the preliminary reports on structural damage from teh university guys.
English is not perfect but should suffice.
By the way, the 'casa dello studente' building maybe, judging by the picture's angle, is the structure previously posted by JAE, it has become the symbol of the quake's destructiveness and maybe of the builders' neglectfulness
