Scientists on trial: At fault? Scientists used to believe that small quakes were thought to reduce the stress on Earthquake faults. These thoughts have changed. Small earthquakes or so called fore-shocks are precursers to the larger damaging quakes. Vittorini, a 48-year-old surgeon who has lived in LAquila all his life, will never forgive himself for breaking with that tradition on the night of 5 April 2009. After hundreds of low-level tremors over several months, LAquila shook with a strong, magnitude-3.9 tremor shortly before 11 p.m. on that Palm Sunday evening. Vittorini debated with his wife Claudia and his terrified nine-year-old daughter Fabrizia whether to spend the rest of the night outside. Swayed by what he describes as anaesthetizing public assurances by government officials that there was no imminent danger, and recalling scientific statements claiming that each shock diminished the potential for a major earthquake, he persuaded his family to remain in their apartment on Via Luigi Sturzo. All three of them were huddled together in the master bed when, at 3:32 a.m. on 6 April, a devastating magnitude-6.3 earthquake struck the city. It was like being in a blender, Vittorini recalls. It wasnt a roar, it was a gigantic noise. And then darkness. The apartment building, a structure of reinforced concrete constructed in 1962, instantly collapsed, and their third-floor apartment ended up in a jumble of wreckage several feet off the ground. Seven people were killed in the collapse of the building, including Vittorinis wife and daughter; he was pulled from the rubble, injured but alive, six hours later.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 22:03:10 +0000
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