Devastation: An aerial view of the area around the Abruzzo capital L'aquila, epicentre of an earthquake which struck early on 6 April. The violent temblor jolted central Italy killing at least 150 people and injuring 1,500 as buildings and homes in the walled medieval town were reduced to rubble.
Credit: AFP/CORPO FORESTALE DELLO STATO
PARIS: Scientists said the killer earthquake that struck central Italy on Monday occurred in a notorious trouble spot and warned of possible further powerful shocks in coming months.
The pre-dawn temblor, measuring 6.2 magnitude, struck in the central Apennines, the mountainous spine that runs down Italy, around 100 km northeast of Rome, the Italian Geophysical Institute said.
The historic town of L'Aquila bore the brunt of the big shake, and scores of people were dead or missing, according to rescue officials.
Five big quakes
The quake has killed at least 150 people, injured 1,500 and devastated the walled medieval town. More than 70,00 people are feared homeless.
Roger Musson of the British Geological Survey (BGS) in Edinburgh, Scotland, said the Apennines were a hotspot for large quakes, and an event of this magnitude "is not really a surprise."
"We have this in-built psychological sense that this Earth on which we stand is fixed and immobile, then an earthquake comes along and shatters the illusion," he said.
In the last century, five big quakes in or around Italy's trouble-prone backbone have claimed around 34,000 lives. Monday's event was the third major quake in less than 12 years in a radius of just 140 km.
Robin Lacassin, a geologist at the Institute of Geophysics in Paris (IPGP), France, said the quake happened very close to the surface, "practically under the town of L'Aquila."
"Crisscrossed with faults"
The impact may have been somewhat amplified by a basin of sedimentary soil, which propels rather than dampens shockwaves.
"The magnitude is not huge, it's quite within the range for destructive earthquakes in the centre of Italy," he said. "All of this region, from central Italy to Calabria in the southeast, is crisscrossed with faults."
To the west of the Apennines is the European plate, and to the south is the African plate, which is moving slowly northwards, Musson explained.
To the east is the big mischief-maker, the Adria microplate, which is tugging to the northeast and is a potent trigger for quakes in both the Apennines and in the Balkans, on the other side of the Adriatic.
