Posted on 09/06/2002 6:08:54 AM PDT by NYer
ROME (AP) _ Sicily was rocked by its strongest earthquake in 20 years, a 5.6-magnitude temblor that injured three people and damaged some buildings in the city of Palermo early Friday.
Thousands of people ran out of their homes into the streets when it struck, the Italian news agency ANSA said. It said two elderly people died of heart attacks brought on by the quake, although hospital officials only confirmed one.
The quake had its epicenter about 25 miles northeast of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea, said Mario Cerrone, an engineer with the Palermo department of civil protection. The U.S. National Earthquake Center in Golden, Colo. estimated the preliminary magnitude at 6.1, but the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology in Rome put it at 5.6, Cerrone said.
Italian seismologist Calvino Gasparini said it was the strongest to hit the region in two decades. It lasted about 20-30 seconds, and was followed by two large aftershocks and more than 70 smaller ones that continued to rattle the island late into the morning. One of the largest aftershocks was registered five hours after the initial tremor struck. Cerrone said some buildings in Palermo's historic center had chunks of masonry knocked off by the tremors.
Three buildings with some of the heaviest damage were evacuated as a precaution, ANSA said. Sicily, the island just west of the Italian mainland's toe, has been struck several times by major earthquakes that have killed hundreds of people. In 1968, nearly 400 people died in a quake. In 1908, a quake leveled the city of Messina, killing 83,000 people.
Friday's quake struck several hours after a temblor with a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 rattled Greece and the western Aegean. No injuries or damage were immediately reported in that quake. The Athens Geodynamic Institute said the two were not related.
We get those in the NW every couple of years, they're harmless.
In California they have them that size every other week.
Wow, I wonder where that quake rates on the Richter Scale.
I wonder how they are going to get the suspension wires to stretch?
Cheers.
Things are pretty stable here, Chile is the most stable country in Latin America, both economically and politically. They have a very important mining sector and encourage foreign investment rather than try to penalize companies who want to invest. I think the economy is growing at about 4% per year...and the Chileans are complaining because the economy had been booming at over 8% per year.
Cheers.
But just as a precaution, France has already surrendered.
NEIC: Near Real Time Earthquake List
DATE-(UTC)-TIME Latitude Longitude Depth Magnitude Q COMMENTS
yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss degrees degrees km
2002/09/06 01:45:29 38.33N 13.63E 10.0 4.5 A SICILY, ITALY
2002/09/06 01:21:27 38.36N 13.70E 10.0 5.9 A SICILY, ITALY
ANSS Recent Earthquakes in the US -- current U.S. quake map
Big earthquake list (with map) : All earthquake list (with map)
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