With the Central Italy earthquake, which affected 140 municipalities in Central Italy, 24 August 2016 marked the beginning of the seismic sequence of Amatrice-Norcia-Visso by the NIGV, which lasted until January 2017.
The Central Italy earthquake of 24 August 2016
The first strong earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.0, occurred on 24 August 2016, at 3:36 a.m., with epicentre located along Valle del Tronto, between the municipalities of Accumoli (RI) and Arquata del Tronto (AP). Affecting an area of about 8000 square kilometres and about 600,000 people, the territorial extension of the faults activated that night was particularly disastrous.
Two powerful aftershocks occurred on 26 October 2016, with epicentres on the Umbria-Marche border, between the municipalities of the province of Macerata di Visso, Ussita and Castelsantangelo sul Nera (the first quake at 7:11 p.m. with magnitude 5.4 and the second at 9:18 p.m. with magnitude 5.9).
The strongest earthquake was recorded on 30 October 2016, with a magnitude of 6.5, and epicentre between the municipalities of Norcia and Preci, in the province of Perugia. On 18 January 2017, there was another sequence of four strong earthquakes of magnitude greater than 5, with a maximum of 5.5, and epicentres between the municipalities of Montereale, Capitignano and Cagnano Amiterno.
The quake and aftershocks were felt across much of Central Italy and some parts of Northern Italy.
The 2016 Central Italy earthquake occurred in an area of Central Italy that is very seismically active which also includes L’Aquila, affected by the earthquake of 6 April 2009 (magnitude 6.3), in addition to Marche and Umbria itself, which suffered the earthquake of 26 September 1997 (magnitude 6.0).
The 2016 Central Italy earthquake
What effects and damage were caused by the 2016 Central Italy earthquake?
24 August 2016
The magnitude 6.0 earthquake of 24 August destroyed the municipalities of Amatrice (RI), Accumoli (RI) and Arquata del Tronto (AP), along with their hamlets, particularly Pescara Del Tronto, a hamlet of Arquata, which was completely levelled to the ground. Between the provinces of Rieti and Ascoli Piceno, several collapses and injuries occurred in many surrounding municipalities as well.
The earthquake also caused extensive damage to the area’s cultural heritage. The high street of Amatrice, Corso Umbertino, became the symbol of the devastation from the August 24th earthquake. Only the civic tower with the bell remained standing, together with the church of St. Augustine, at the gates of the town centre, although with the façade partially collapsed. In Accumoli, there were several collapses in the historic centre, including the bell tower of the parish church, the most serious one.
Civil protection reported that there were 299 victims, while 238 people were pulled alive from the rubble (some of whom later died), 215 by the Fire Brigade and 23 by the Italian Alpine Club and the Guardia di Finanza. A total of 388 people were injured and taken to hospital.
This set of events resulted in about 41,000 displaced people, 388 injured and 303 dead, including 3 indirect deaths.
The 2016 Central Italy Earthquake
26 October 2016
On 26 October 2016, the two strongest shocks of magnitude 5.4 and 5.9 seriously damaged the municipalities of Castelsantangelo sul Nera, Visso, where some houses in the centre collapsed, and Ussita, where several churches collapsed. Neighbouring municipalities also suffered significant damage.
30 October 2016
The earthquake of 30 October caused very serious damage to the artistic and infrastructural heritage of Norcia, such as the flooding caused by the River Nera. The symbol of Norcia’s damage was the almost total ruin of the Basilica of San Benedetto, only the façade of which remained standing, as well as the medieval walls, the Cathedral and the Church of Sant’ Andrea di Campi. Due to frequent earthquake tremors, more recent damage was done in Amatrice, such as the collapse of the municipal building. One side of the church of St. Augustine also collapsed. The Vittorio Emanuele II Hospital in Amandola, damaged earlier by the earthquake of 24 August, was also damaged by the shock of 30 October. It was declared unusable with consequent evacuation and closure.
The 2016 Norcia Earthquake
18 January 2017
The earthquake of 18 January 2017 damaged the municipalities of Montereale, Campotosto, Capitignano, Cortino and Valle Castellana. With the collapse of the tower of the municipal building from the 1950s and damage to the façade of the parish church, damaged earlier by the earthquake of 2009 and never restored, Campotosto was the municipality most affected. Some warehouses and country sheds in Castel Castagna collapsed, where the only reported victim of the earthquake was killed when his barn collapsed from the heavy snowfall that occurred in those days. It was considered probable (but not proven) that the earthquake indirectly caused an avalanche to detach from Gran Sasso, in Abruzzo, which completely destroyed a hotel in Rigopiano, a well-known tourist resort in the municipality of Farindola, in the province of Pescara, causing the death of 29 and injuring 11. Luckily, L’Aquila was not damaged. In Amatrice, the bell tower of the church of St. Augustine definitively collapsed.
How was the emergency managed and what reconstruction works were there after the Central Italy earthquake of 24 August 2016?
The first search and rescue teams arrived at the scenes of the earthquake just a few hours after the 24th of August earthquake, albeit with some delay in reaching the most isolated villages, because of the numerous collapsed bridges and roads obstructed by debris. The following day the total number of rescuers deployed amounted to 5,400 units.
The national coordination of Civil Protection took place initially in Rome through the Operational Committee, and, from 28 August through the Directorate of Command and Control, it was established in Rieti, in the INPS building adjacent to Police Headquarters.
To manage the reconstruction, the Italian government chose from the beginning to move away from centralized management and to resort to ordinary administrative procedures, decentralizing decisions in the territories. The mayors of the affected towns strongly demanded that the towns be rebuilt where they were, instead of constructing new towns to house the displaced.
However, in the following months, the mayors of the crater area criticized the excessive bureaucracy that slowed down reconstruction. Ten months after the first shock, out of the 3,800 requested, only 400 emergency housing units had been delivered, while more than 90% of the rubble was still to be removed.
In early 2018, according to civil protection data, 1,871 emergency housing units had been handed over to the mayors.
Rubble of buildings that collapsed during the 2016–2017 earthquakes
Judicial inquiries
The day after 24 August 2016, the prosecutor’s office of Rieti started an investigation into the collapse of about 70 buildings, including the Romolo Capranica school in Amatrice, the Roma hotel and two council housing buildings, and in Accumoli, the bell tower that collapsed on a house, killing the family that lived in it. The investigation, which hypothesized the crime of negligent homicide and manslaughter, has the task of shedding light on the earthquake-resistant improvement interventions carried out on some of the buildings with the funds allocated after the 1997 and 2009 earthquakes. The first trial about the collapses that occurred in Amatrice on the night of 24 August 2016, ended in the lower court on 8 September 2020. The Court of Rieti found all the defendants guilty of the collapse of the council housing of Amatrice after the bodies of 18 people were found beneath the rubble.
Solidarity actions
A few hours after the earthquake, the Department of Civil Protection set up a phone number, 45500, with telephone operators to support the populations affected by the earthquake; the number was also used during the subsequent earthquakes in October. Furthermore, €8.6 million were collected by the Civil Protection through transfers. At the same time, the “Help now – Central Italy 6.0 Earthquake” fund-raising campaign was launched. Organized after the earthquake were other fund-raising campaigns, such as “The Renaissance has a young heart”, promoted by Legambiente, and numerous partners aiming to help young entrepreneurs affected by the earthquake in the recovery phase of their businesses.
The 2016 Central Italy Earthquake
“It is important to remember earthquakes, because our brain wants to forget memories of tragedies, while remembering these terrible events helps us to implement all possible defensive strategies against future events that will inevitably happen again.”
Carlo Doglioni, President of NIGV
