https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqu7hSXLHms

Any RMs from this area?

I am from a neighboring region, but living somewhere else now. I read on the news that the earthquake was felt also in my hometown, about 140 km. away. So far 22 dead under the rubble in Arquata, Accumoli and Amatrice, small villages on the Apennine Mountains, between the regions Lazio, Umbria and Marche.

I was there for that last one that hit Assisi so hard. It shook us out of bed. The next morning an aftershock killed people in the basilica who were inspecting the damage. I've never seen Italians come together so well and work so hard to restore something without a lot of general political bickering and interference from organized crime. The basilica was repaired day and night and re-opened 2 years later. I'm very sorry that this earthquake was still in the same greater area. I notice that it was near Norcia, and Norcia was badly damaged in the 1997 quake.

DH woke me up at 5:30 this morning (for once that I could sleep...) to tell me if I had heard what had happened in Italy. I said no, and he told me "An earthquake in Umbria!" Panic of course, and the first thought went to Assisi, Gubbio, Perugia! and my beautiful town, of course. I don't want to say I am insensitive to the victims, of course I am, but that is a part of Italy where there is art (ancient churches and buildings, Museums, archeological sites) at every corner.

M.T., this time it is a bit more on the south, between the provinces of Rieti and Ascoli Piceno, but of course it has been felt all over central Italy, in L'Aquila, Rome, and my town in Tuscany. I read Amatrice is destroyed and the number of the victims is now 38!

Reconstruction: what does it say about people and politics, the fact that the area in Friuli (North-east Italy) hit by the earthquake in 1976 was efficiently rebuilt without dispersion of funds and waste of time, while after the earthquakes in Belice (Sicily, 1968) and Irpinia (Campania, 1980), funds disappeared, people weren't able to rebuild their villages, always complaining about the State, and decades later they were still living in containers? I don't know, what do you think, Mike T.?

It always seems that the South in any country is somehow less important than the North. Anyway, southern Italy and Sicily are always absolutely beset with organized crime problems, with 'Ndrangheta and Sacra Corona stepping in in southern Italy, La Cosa Nostra in Sicily, and La Camorra in Naples, any time there is a disaster. Many southern politicians are even members of the crime families. They funnel off the the aid money into their organizations, generally through contracts with construction companies, and then the people look around and, behold, all the funds are magically gone. The North has far less of these problems. Also, southerners themselves complain that northerners are "too much like Germans." I think they mean "efficient."

Yes, you are right, that's what it is.

We'll see what happens here, (almost) at the border between central and southern Italy, will they be able to rebuild, and better than what has been done in L'Aquila?!

In the meantime the victims are over 70 and some villages are devastated, completely destroyed.There are pictures on the ANSA website and it looks terrible.

I am very sad.

Yeah, me, too. All those places are little treasures in the hills. They are all irreplaceable.

I doubt that they will fare better than L'Aquila. L'Aquila is one of your more important towns in the region.

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-rome-earthquake-20160823-snap-story.html

The magnitude of the earthquake was 6.2 but the damage was extreme because the buildings in the area were not built to survive earthquakes.

When I read about earthquakes like this I am reminded of the fact that the Wasatch Front in Utah is located along the Wasatch Fault. From geological evidence of past events on that fault, a major earthquake is overdue.

I'm sorry for the pain and suffering and for the loss of beautiful and historic structures. I traveled in that area and loved the sights and enjoyed the warm kindness of the people there. They lit up in smiles at any effort to speak their language and I appreciated it.