EARTQUAKE 2009 ABRUZZO
07.04.2009
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h. 18:24
BUILDING INSPECTIONS TO BEGIN WEDNESDAY
(ANSA) - Rome, April 7 - The civil protection department on Tuesday said that inspections of homes and public buildings damaged in Monday's earthquake will begin on Wednesday and residents will be allowed back in their homes if they are found to be safe. Natale Mazzei of the department's emergency office said over 200 teams of experts would be making the inspections.

h.18.19
RESCUE OPERATION CALLED OFF IN ONNA
(ANSA) - L'Aquila, April 7 - Rescuers on Tuesday officially called a halt to the rescue operation in Onna, the small town that was worst hit in Monday's earthquake. Forty people died from a population of 350 in the town, which is situated ten kilometres from the Abruzzo capital of L'Aquila . Firemen said they would now concentrate on removing rubble and securing buildings in the remains of the town, where plaster continued to crumble as aftershocks continued Tuesday. Photo: Onna after the quake.

h. 17:00
QUAKE: TERME DI CARACALLA OK
(ANSA) - Rome, April 7 - The Terme di Caracalla archeological site in Rome was not damaged by Monday's earthquake in central Italy, Culture Undersecretary Francesco Giro said Tuesday. ''A thorough examination of Emperor Caracalla's Baths has not detected damage of any particular importance,'' he said. On Monday officials said the 1,800-year-old site might have been slightly damaged in the 6.2 magnitude quake at L'Aquila 100 km (60 miles) to the east. The Baths of Caracalla were Roman public baths, or thermae, built in Rome between AD 212 and 216, during Caracalla's reign. The extensive ruins of the baths have become a popular tourist attraction.

h. 16:52
QUAKE: ITALY MAY ACCEPT U.S. HELP
(ANSA) - L'Aquila, April 7 - Italy may accept help from the United States following the L'Aquila earthquake, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday. After initially turning down offers of help that have poured in from abroad, Berlusconi appeared to change his mind after receiving ''a long phone call'' from US President Barack Obama as he toured temporary camps set up to house those who had lost their homes in the disaster. ''If the United States wants to give a tangible sign of its solidarity with Italy it could take on the responsibility of rebuilding heritage sites and churches,'' Berlusconi said. ''We would be very happy to have this support''. The premier said Obama had said this was ''an excellent idea'' and would discuss it when the two leaders meet in Washington on a date yet to be set. Berlusconi said another alternative would be for the US to help rebuild ''a small district of a town or a suburb'' so that it could say ''this was done with our contribution''. Many historic buildings and churches in L'Aquila were destroyed or damaged in Monday's earthquake, including the apse of the Abruzzo city's largest Romanesque church, the 13th-century Basilica di Santa Maria di Collemaggio, and the cupola of the 17th-century Anime Sante church designed by Giuseppe Valadier

h. 16:40
QUAKE: VATICAN SENDS IN ITS FIRE BRIGADE
(ANSA) - Vatican City, April 7 - The Vatican has sent an eight-man squad from its fire brigade to help with rescue efforts in the central Italian region of Abruzzo following Monday's devastating earthquake there, Vatican Radio reported on Tuesday. During a special broadcast on the earthquake, Vatican Police Chief Domenico Giani said that ''as soon as we heard the news of this immense tragedy I conferred with our superiors, Msgr Renato Boccardo and Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo. We then spoke with the Holy Father, the secretary of state (Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone) and with members of his office''. ''We felt it was our duty, in this moment of incredible sorrow, to also send a squad from our fire brigade to lend a hand in this great emergency,'' he added. Vatican Radio also reported on Tuesday that Pope Benedict XVI was ''closely monitoring developments in the situation and praying for the victims, the survivors and rescue workers''.

h.14.58
QUAKE: INTENSITY DETERMINED BY SHALLOWNESS OF FAULT
(ANSA) - Tokyo, April 7 - The intensity of the earthquake which rocked the central Italian region of Abruzzo was determined by the fact that the movement in the fault which caused it was relatively superficial, according to a leading Japanese expert. ''I have analysed seismic waves recorded the world over and the intensity of the April 6 earthquake in Italy would appear to be caused by the fact that the movement in the fault took place only one or two kilometers below ground,'' observed Yashiko Yamanaka, an expert in seismology and professor at Japan's Nagoya University. The fault line, the expert told Japanese TV, ''is about 10km wide and 20km wide and the earthquake took place when it moved from north to south and the western side of the shelf dropped some 60cm in a period of ten seconds''. Yamanaka made his remarks on a program on which a number of other experts gave their opinions on what took place in Italy with special attention paid to the quality of construction in relatively new buildings. Japan is in the front line in developing anti-seismic building techniques, given that it, like Italy, is subject to frequent earthquakes. Looking at footage sent from the disaster area, one expert, a University of Tokyo professor, said the pillars used as foundations appeared to be ''too skinny'' and classic solid bricks were used in the main walls rather than modern ones which are more similar to 'Lego' blocks which are interconnected and can withstand the sway of walls during a tremor

h.14.58 
QUAKE: INTENSITY DETERMINED BY SHALLOWNESS OF FAULT
(ANSA) - Tokyo, April 7 - The intensity of the earthquake which rocked the central Italian region of Abruzzo was determined by the fact that the movement in the fault which caused it was relatively superficial, according to a leading Japanese expert. ''I have analysed seismic waves recorded the world over and the intensity of the April 6 earthquake in Italy would appear to be caused by the fact that the movement in the fault took place only one or two kilometers below ground,'' observed Yashiko Yamanaka, an expert in seismology and professor at Japan's Nagoya University. The fault line, the expert told Japanese TV, ''is about 10km wide and 20km wide and the earthquake took place when it moved from north to south and the western side of the shelf dropped some 60cm in a period of ten seconds''. Yamanaka made his remarks on a program on which a number of other experts gave their opinions on what took place in Italy with special attention paid to the quality of construction in relatively new buildings. Japan is in the front line in developing anti-seismic building techniques, given that it, like Italy, is subject to frequent earthquakes. Looking at footage sent from the disaster area, one expert, a University of Tokyo professor, said the pillars used as foundations appeared to be ''too skinny'' and classic solid bricks were used in the main walls rather than modern ones which are more similar to 'Lego' blocks which are interconnected and can withstand the sway of walls during a tremor.

h. 14.32
QUAKE: BERLUSCONI PROPOSES 'NEW TOWN'
(ANSA) - L'Aquila, April 7 - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday he would like to construct a 'new town' near L'Aquila, the Abruzzo capital devastated by Monday's earthquake. The government recently announced that more than 100 new towns would be built as part of a new construction drive aimed at helping revive the economy. ''I would like the first new town to be built here,'' Berlusconi said at a press conference in L'Aquila. ''There will be private investments and together with the support of the banks it would be possible to have mortagages smaller or equal to the cost of renting''. The premier said Monday the new town could be completed ''within 24-28 months''. The idea came under immediate fire from the Democratic Party's shadow environment minister Ermete Realacci. ''It's one thing to reconstruct the city with the criteria of security, efficiency and quality, taking its history into account, and it's another to imagine buildings that contrast with the characteristics of the area,'' Realacci said. Pierluigi Mantini, an MP from Abruzzo for the centrist UDC party, also slammed Berlusconi's proposal. ''We don't want a 'new town', we want to reconstruct L'Aquila and (neighbouring) historic centres as even more beautiful and safer than before,'' Mantini said. ''The people of Abruzzo do not want L'Aquila 2,'' he added.

h. 13:55
QUAKE: 207 DEAD, 48 HRS FOR MISSING
(ANSA) - L'Aquila, April 6 - The death toll from Monday's quake in L'Aquila has risen to 207 and rescue services have set a 48-hour deadline for locating the remaining six missing people, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday. Rescue teams were focusing their efforts on retrieving four teenagers believed to be in the ruins of the Abruzzo city's youth centre, the premier said. He said 150 people had been pulled from the rubble alive and more than 7,000 rescuers from 12 Italian regions were at work. Field camps for 14,500 survivors would be completed by Tuesday evening, he said. The 6.2 magnitude quake left 17,000 homeless, many of whom have already been taken to hotels on the Abruzzo coast. ''All the rescue squads and especially the fire teams have been great. We must thank and admire them,'' Berlusconi told reporters. The premier thanked countries from around the world including the United States and Iran who had offered help but said Italy could cope. On Monday the government earmarked a 30-million-euro emergency package and started drawing on European Union funds that would reach into the hundreds of millions.

h. 13:52
QUAKE: GRANDMOTHER 'CROCHETED' DURING 30-HOUR WAIT
(ANSA) - L'Aquila, April 7 - A 98-year-old grandmother rescued 30 hours after Monday's earthquake in Abruzzo said she had whiled away the time ''crocheting'' amid the rubble. Firemen on Tuesday morning found Maria D'Antuoni waiting in her bed surrounded by fallen plaster in the small village of Tempera. D'Antuoni ate some crackers and told television crews ''at least let me comb my hair'' as they waited for an interview. ''What did I do all this time? I was working, I was crocheting,'' she said.

h. 13:42
QUAKE: AFTERSHOCKS FELT IN ROME
(ANSA) - Rome, April 7 - Public sector offices and a museum in Rome were evacuated Tuesday after a strong aftershock from the L'Aquila earthquake was felt in the capital. A ten-storey building that houses offices for city police and public transport authorities in southern Rome and the Pigorini Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography in the Mussolini-era EUR neighbourhood were both evacuated following the aftershock at 11:27 Tuesday (09:27 GMT). At its epicentre 95 kilometres away near the Abruzzo capital L'Aquila, the aftershock registered 4.7 on the MMS scale and lasted for around a minute, causing panic as plaster fell from damaged buildings. Monday's main earthquake, which registered 6.2 on the scale, was clearly felt in Rome and caused some damage to the Terme di Caracalla archeological site.

h. 13:32
MONITORING BOOSTED ALONG APENNINE FAULT LINE
(ANSA) - Rome, April 7 - Italy's National Geophysics and Vulcanology Institute (INGV) is boosting the number of monitoring devices it has along the Apennine fault line believed to have caused the earthquake which rocked the central region of Abruzzo on Monday. ''Today we expect to install another dozen or so devices, in addition to the ones we put in yesterday, to better monitor the aftershocks in relation to their time and magnitude,'' INGV seismologist Claudio Chiarabba said on Tuesday. ''We will continue to install them over the coming days until we have up to 40 in place. These stations will allow us to monitor the full length of the fault and get a detailed map of its evolution,'' he added. The monitoring stations will remain in place for as long as the seismic activity continues, probably for a month to a month and a half, Chiarabbia said. According to the INGV expert, while it is not easy to define the 'geometry' of a fault, it is important to do so because its characteristics, when compared to data from other earthquakes, will be useful in the future when trying to predict quakes.

h. 13:13
QUAKE: ITALY GETTING WIDER, FRENCH EXPERT SAYS
(ANSA) - Paris, April 7 - Monday's earthquake in the central region of Abruzzo was in part due to the fact that Italy is getting wider, a French expert said on Tuesday. ''Italy is getting wider by one millimeter a year and this is putting pressure on fault lines along the Apennine mountain chain,'' seismologist Pascal Bernard said in an interview published in the French daily Liberation. Italy's greatest 'hope', he said, was that along the mountain chain there was not one or two major fault lines but ''a series of faults of no longer than 15km each maximum which are in some way interconnected''. Bernard explained he used the term 'hope' because ''the magnitude of a quake is directly linked with the length of a fault when it slips. When the faults are longer than 1000km and up to 1,000km their can provoke 'titanic' earthquakes''. Bernard is employed at the Institute du Physique du Globe in Paris.

h. 13:08
QUAKE: INTERIOR MINISTRY EARMARKS 130 MILLION EUROS
(ANSA) - Rome, April 7 - Interior Minister Roberto Maroni on Tuesday said that a total of 130 million euros has been earmarked for his ministry's role over the next six months in dealing with the aftermath of Monday's earthquake in the region of Abruzzo. The funds, he explained, were needed for the police and firemen deployed on the ground. Speaking on a morning TV talk show, Maroni added that the cabinet will meet again on Wednesday to review the situation and allocate more funds. All resources needed to deal with this national emergency would be used, the interior minister added. There are currently 1,950 firemen employed in Abruzzo and have with them some 90 vehicles. The interior ministry has also sent in 72 engineers and architects, to ascertain the stability of buildings, 13 special mountain climbing squads, 40 search dogs and six squads specialised in searching through rubble using high-tech equipment. In order to assist rescue efforts, the ministry has brought in 51 earth-moving vehicles, six cranes, 22 ladder trucks, four helicopters, two mobile communications units and three radio transmitter-receivers. Maroni said that over 10,000 beds had been found for the homeless in hotels along the Abruzzo coast. ''However, many of the homeless have preferred to stay in the area and sleep in their cars because they are, understandably, concered about looting. In order to deal with the problem of looting, Maroni said an additional 200 police and Carabinieri had been sent in and that their number would be increased after several cases of looting were reported on Monday.

h. 12:57
QUAKE: FAKE SURVIVORS CLAIM FREE HOTEL ROOMS
(ANSA) - Pescara, April 7 - Police on Tuesday caught a number of people falsely claiming to have lost their homes in the L'Aquila earthquake in order to receive free hospitality at hotels along the Abruzzo coast. Abruzzo Governor Gianni Chiodi announced Monday that some 10,000 people displaced by the earthquake could be moved to hotels in Pescara and neighbouring coastal towns. But provincial police chief Giovanni Esposito Alaia said a number of people, identified as mainly Roma (gypsies), had joined the crowds of displaced and tried to claim hotel rooms. Genuine earthquake survivors are now being asked to coordinate with local civil protection units.

h. 12:23
QUAKE: BERLUSCONI BACK IN ABRUZZO
(ANSA) - Rome, April 7 - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi flew back to the disaster-struck region of Abruzzo on Tuesday for a first-hand look at rescue efforts together with Civil Protection chief Guido Bertolaso. Before landing in the region's capital L'Aquila, the premier's helicopter flew over nearby towns where the destruction from Monday's earthquake was the greatest. Berlusconi spent several hours in the region on Monday to review the extent of the damage from the quake and later returned to Rome where he signed a decree declaring the zone a national disaster area and activated emergency funds to deal with the crisis, including those available from the European Union. The official death toll is currently 179 with an estimated one out of seven L'Aquila residents homeless for a total of 17,000 in the province. Berlusconi was supposed to have travelled to Moscow for a Russian-Italian summit but cancelled his trip after the earthquake hit. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a personal friend of the premier, said in Moscow on Tuesday that he ''perfectly understood'' why Berlusconi was unable to attend the summit. Putin also expressed condolences, as well as those of the Russian people, for the victims of the earthquake.

h. 12:18
QUAKE: AFTERSHOCKS CAUSE PANIC IN L'AQUILA
(ANSA) - L'Aquila, April 7 - Aftershocks on Tuesday continued to cause panic in the Abruzzo capital L'Aquila and neighbouring towns more than 32 hours after an earthquake that has left at least 179 dead. Two strong quakes, one registering 4.3 on the MMS scale and lasting for around a minute, shook buildings at 11:27 Tuesday (09:28 GMT) and resulted in shaky plaster and cornices collapsing in L'Aquila. The aftershocks caused panic among survivors who had spent the night in their cars outside their homes, many of whom fled away from the buildings fearing further collapse. Seismologist Francesco Mele of the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV) said there had been around 280 aftershocks since the main quake struck at 03:33 local time (01:33 GMT) on Monday, registering 6.2 on the MMS scale. The most violent aftershock, of 4.8 magnitude, occurred at 01:15 Tuesday (23:15 GMT Monday). Mele said the INGV was setting up six new monitoring stations a few kilometres from the fault line in the area, while four more would be installed later on Tuesday.

h. 12:14
QUAKE: ITALIAN SOCCER TO MOURN VICTIMS
(ANSA) - Rome, April 7 - Italian soccer will mourn the victims of the L'Aquila earthquake with all players in Serie A and B and other levels turning out in black arm-bands for the weekend's play, the Italian Soccer League said Tuesday. The official toll is 179 but more than 30 people are missing and hopes are fading of finding more people under the rubble.

h. 10:58
QUAKE: 179 DEAD, 34 MISSING
(ANSA) - Rome, April 7 - The earthquake that hit the Abruzzo capital L'Aquila Monday killed at least 179 people, injured 1,500 and left 17,000 homeless, rescue services said Tuesday. Some 1,500 people were injured and 34 still missing about 30 hours after the 6.2 magnitude quake, Italy's worst in 30 years. A 24-year-old student, Marta, gave rescue teams hope as she emerged out of the ruins of a collapsed house 23 hours after the tremor. So far some 100 people have been pulled out of the rubble alive. The worst-hit place has been Onna, a village outside L'Aquila, which has lost 39 of its 250 inhabitants. Some 280 aftershocks have been felt since the quake - the biggest, 4.8 magnitude, at 01.15 Tuesday (23:15 GMT Monday). People are still being ferried to hotels on the sea while some of L'Aquila's 10,000 homeless spent the night in their cars. Premier Silvio Berlusconi is expected back on the scene Tuesday after announcing a relief and reconstruction package of 30 million euros and proclaiming national mourning.

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