2009 L'Aquila earthquake

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Epicenter of the April 6, 2009 quake

The L'Aquila earthquake in Italy was an earthquake in the Abruzzo region and occured on April 6, 2009 at 03:32 am local time (01:32 UTC on April 6, 2009). The United States Geological Survey gave the strength of the main quake with the moment magnitude M W = 6.3, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia gives a magnitude of M L = 5.8 on the Richter scale . According to this, the hypocenter of the earthquake was 5 kilometers southwest of the city center of L'Aquila , which is about 95 kilometers northeast of the Italian capital Rome , at a depth of 8.8 kilometers. The quake could be felt as far as Rome and Pescara on the Adriatic coast in the east of the country.

Tectonic background

The quake in central Italy occurred as a result of a displacement at a northwest-southeast-oriented structure in the central Apennines , a mountain range that runs from the Gulf of Taranto in the south to the Po Plain in northern Italy. From a geological point of view, the Apennines represent an accretion wedge as a result of subduction . The region is extremely complex tectonically and geologically. It includes the subduction of the Adriatic Plate under the Apennines from east to west, the continental collision between the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate in the north, and the opening of the Tyrrhenian Basin in the west.

The coincidence of these systems finds expression in the frequent quakes in the Apennines and the Mediterranean region. The L'Aquila quake was also caused by the fact that the Tyrrhenian Basin opens faster than the compression between the Eurasian and African plates.

Before and after shocks

Already in the hours before the strongest tremor of magnitude 5.8 there were two smaller tremors with magnitude 3.5 and 3.9. The previous evening, too, a slight tremor was noticeable in northern Italy; it had a magnitude of 4.6 and occurred at 10:20 pm in the Emilia-Romagna region . Numerous aftershocks also made the rescue work more difficult.

In terms of magnitude, it was the worst earthquake in the region since that near Assisi in 1997.

Damage and loss

Destroyed prefecture of the province of L'Aquila Inspection of the earthquake damage
Destroyed prefecture of the province of L'Aquila
Inspection of the earthquake damage

The final number of deaths is 308, and the civil protection authorities had to temporarily accommodate around 67,000 homeless people in tent cities and hotels on the Adriatic coast. In total, up to 15,000 buildings were damaged by the tremors.

The quake caused severe damage in the old town of L'Aquila, with the focus on the southern outskirts. However, the greatest destruction occurred in the villages east of the city. Onna, which belongs to the municipality of L'Aquila, was almost completely destroyed; over 40 residents died. Castelnuovo, Fossa, Paganica, Roio Poggio, Santo Stefano di Sessanio, Tempera and Villa Sant'Angelo were almost as badly affected.

State funeral

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone at the state funeral

On the morning of April 10, 2009, Good Friday , 205 of 291 earthquake victims were buried in a state funeral in the presence of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi , President Giorgio Napolitano and numerous other politicians and leading clergy. The funeral mass was celebrated by Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone . Towards the end, an Islamic rite was held for the Muslim victims. In addition, Friday was declared a day of national mourning , flags were raised at half-mast , and aircraft at the airport stood still for a minute's silence. Pope Benedict XVI visited the earthquake-damaged zone a few weeks later on April 28th.

Help and reconstruction

Church Anime Sante after the quake

After the earthquake, the car manufacturer Ferrari transferred the proceeds from the sale of the F430 to the relief fund for the victims of the earthquake. The Italian Formula 1 racing driver Jarno Trulli organized a fundraising campaign under the name Abruzzo In Hearts , in which Valentino Rossi took part.

Under the organizational direction of Laura Pausini , well-known musicians and performers from Italy's pop and rock scene organized the live aid concert Amiche per l'Abruzzo in the San Siro stadium in Milan . Around 57,000 people took part in the solidarity event, at which 44 stars - including Nada , Carmen Consoli and Gianna Nannini - performed. The Roman daily La Repubblica reported a sum of one and a half million euros as the interim result of the concert and the concert DVD that was published from it, which, according to the organizers , should benefit the De amicis Aquila primary school . A schoolchildren delegation from the school concerned also attended the concert.

The Church in Onna 2011

The German Embassy in Rome set up a donation account after the earthquake and is using the funds to support the reconstruction of the suburb of Onna . The twin town of Rottweil has also collected extensive donations. Onna was more than 90% destroyed during the earthquake, 42 of the 280 inhabitants were killed. Under the coordination of the embassy, ​​a unit of the technical relief organization was dispatched for several months , a community hall was built and a reconstruction plan for the village began. The embassy concentrated its help on Onna, as this village is historically connected to Germany: In 1944 the German Wehrmacht shot 17 innocent people there and blew up several houses. The then Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has also promised his Italian counterpart Franco Frattini help with the reconstruction of the village church from the 18th century.

The Italian government under Berlusconi pledged funds totaling 15 billion euros for rapid reconstruction. However, reconstruction is described as slow.

Trial against earthquake experts

In 2011, a case against the six scientists Giulio Selvaggi, Franco Barberi, Claudio Eva, Mauro Dolce, Gian Michele Calvi and Enzo Boschi , the presidents of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology , and the Deputy Director of the Civil Protection Agency, Bernardo, was initiated at the Court of L'Aquila De Bernardinis, opened. As members of the Risk Commission, they did not interpret the tremors that occurred in the run-up to the earthquake as a sign of an increased risk of the earthquake and did not issue any correspondingly clear warning messages.

This assessment was viewed by the public prosecutor as a trivialization of the dangers. The defense relied on the agreement of the experts' statements with scientific findings, according to which it was not possible to predict earthquakes. With the same reasoning, more than 5000 scientists protested against the indictment at the beginning of the trial with an open letter to the President of the Italian Republic, but the seismologist Rainer Kind from the GFZ changed his mind afterwards and described the trial as justified because, in his opinion, the accused were in wrongly ruled out a strong earthquake in the region in their assessment. On October 22, 2012, the defendants were each sentenced to six years in prison for negligent homicide, which the court went beyond the demands of the public prosecutor. However, the convicts remained at large. On November 10, 2014, the experts were acquitted in the second instance; De Bernardinis, who had made particularly reassuring statements, was reduced to two years in prison and suspended. The public prosecutor appealed to the Corte Suprema di Cassazione . On November 20, 2015, the court of cassation finally confirmed the acquittals.

Web links

Commons : Earthquake of L'Aquila  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Magnitude 6.3 - Central Italy. United States Geological Survey, April 6, 2009, accessed April 6, 2009 .
  2. ↑ Magnitudo (Ml) 5.8 - Abruzzo - L'Aquila . Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, April 6, 2009. {{Web archive | text = archive link | url = http: //cnt.rm.ingv.it/~earthquake/data_id/2206496920/event.php | wayback = 20090409032706 | archive -bot = 2018-04-08 13:46:43 InternetArchiveBot}}. Accessed April 6, 2009 (no longer available). (Italian)
  3. ↑ One year after the earthquake. Deutsche Welle, April 6, 2010, accessed April 8, 2010 .
  4. ↑ Aspettando Pasqua nelle tendopoli Sale a 293 il bilancio delle vittime. La Repubblica, accessed April 11, 2009 (Italian).
  5. ↑ Terremoto in Abruzzo oltre 150 morti, 70,000 sfollati. La Repubblica, April 6, 2009, accessed April 6, 2009 (Italian).
  6. ↑ Italy Weeps for Earthquake Victims , Stern, April 10, 2009
  7. ^ Pope calls for solid reconstruction in L'Aquila , Euronews, April 28, 2009
  8. ^ Voci di donne, festa a San Siro 57mila dalle 'Amiche per l'Abruzzo' , Luigi Bolognini, La Repubblica , June 22, 2009 (Italian)
  9. ^ Giustino Parisse: 11 giugno 1944, la strage nazista di Onna. In: Il Centro. April 25, 2009. Retrieved April 14, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Stefan Troendle: Hope in the village that no longer exists. In: Tagesschau.de. April 6, 2009, archived from the original on October 10, 2010 ; Retrieved October 7, 2010 .
  11. ↑ Earthquake in L'Aquila - A lot of money for little reconstruction. www.spiegel.de, accessed on August 8, 2011 .
  12. ↑ Two years after the earthquake - Reconstruction is still stalling in L'Aquila. www.tagblatt.de, accessed on August 8, 2011 .
  13. ^ Gregor Hoppe: Reconstruction in L'Aquila is slow. In: Tagesschau.de . April 6, 2010; Archived from the original on April 8, 2010 ; Retrieved August 8, 2011 .
  14. ↑ Open letter to the President of the Republic of Italy ( Memento from July 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (English)
  15. ↑ Ralf Nestler: “The process was justified” , Potsdamer Latest News, October 24, 2012
  16. ^ Judith Hartl: Controversial judgment against earthquake experts , Deutsche Welle, October 23, 2012
  17. ^ Rainer Kind on the verdict of L'Aquila , nano /3sat.online, October 23, 2012 (Interview by Kristina zur Mühlen )
  18. ↑ Court sentenced earthquake researchers to long prison terms , Spiegel Online, October 22, 2012
  19. ↑ L'Aquila disaster: Court acquits convicted earthquake researchers , Spiegel Online, November 10, 2014
  20. ^ Italian seismologists cleared of manslaughter , Nature, November 10, 2014; also summarizing: Bruna De Marchi: Scientific Advice and the Case of the L'Aquila Earthquake. In: Technology Assessment , Vol. 23 (2014) H. 3, pp. 90–94. De Marchi assumes that the task of the experts does not consist in the (impossible) precise prediction of earthquakes, but in obtaining information about the safety of the population in the event of an earthquake.
  21. ↑ Acquittals for Italian seismologists , Der Tagesspiegel, November 11, 2014
  22. ↑ Earthquake in L'Aquila: seismologists finally acquitted at nzz.ch, November 21, 2015, accessed on November 21, 2015.

Coordinates: 42 ° 20 '2.4 "  N , 13 ° 20' 2.4"  E