Bangladesh

Tectonic Summary

The August 24, 2016 M 6.2 earthquake southeast of Norcia, Italy, occurred as the result of shallow normal faulting on a NW-SE oriented fault in the Central Apennines. The Apennines is a mountain range that runs from the Gulf of Taranto in the south to the southern edge of the Po basin in northern Italy. Geologically, the Apennines is largely an accretionary wedge formed as a consequence of subduction. This region is tectonically and geologically complex, involving both subduction of the Adria micro-plate beneath the Apennines from east to west, continental collision between the Eurasia and Africa plates building the Alpine mountain belt further to the north and the opening of the Tyrrhenian basin to the west. The evolution of this system has caused the expression of all different tectonic styles acting at the same time in a broad region surrounding Italy and the central Mediterranean. The August 24, 2016 normal faulting earthquake is an expression of the east-west extensional tectonics that now dominate along the Apennine belt, primarily a response to the Tyrrhenian basin opening faster than the compression between the Eurasia and Africa plates. At the location of the earthquake, the Eurasia plate moves towards the northeast with respect to Africa at a rate of approximately 24 mm/yr.

The central Apennine region has experienced several significant earthquakes in recorded history. In September 1997, a Mw 6.0 earthquake 50 km north-northwest of the August 24, 2016 event killed 11, injured over 100 and destroyed approximately 80,000 homes in the Marche and Umbria regions. This 1997 event was part of a series of earthquakes known as the Umbria-Marche seismic sequence, which included eight events of magnitude greater than M5.0 in a two-month period between September and November of that year, including the events that substantially damaged the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi. In April 2009, a Mw 6.3 earthquake 45 km to the south-southeast of the August 24, 2016 event, near the town of L’Aquila, killed at least 295, injured over 1,000 and left 55,000 or more homeless. The L’Aquila earthquake resulted in significant landsliding in the local area, and was also followed by a vigorous aftershock sequence, including 5 other events of M 5.0 or larger. The largest instrumentally recorded earthquake within 100 km of the 2016 event was the January 13, 1915 M6.7 earthquake, which occurred 68 km to the south-southwest near Avezzano. The 1915 earthquake killed approximately 32,000 people. The preliminary location of the 2016 earthquake appears to be in a gap between the aftershock sequences of the 1997 and 2009 events.

CNN

Mayor of quake-hit Amatrice in Italy says residents are buried under debris and town “isn’t here anymore.

“The roads in and out of town are cut off. Half the town is gone,” Sergio Pirozzi, mayor of Amatrice, told RAI state television. “There are people under the rubble… There’s been a landslide and a bridge might collapse.”
Italy’s Civil Protection agency said the earthquake was “severe”

2016-08-24 01:36:33 UTC 42.714°N   13.172°E 10.0 km depth   

NY Times

NY Times

“…..The Louisiana Civil Justice Center, started in the months after the hurricane to respond to the many and confounding legal issues of the poor, is the official statewide legal aid resource in the state bar association’s disaster plan…..

The St. Bernard Project, a nonprofit rebuilding group started by two volunteers in 2006 in a parking lot in a wrecked parish outside of New Orleans, is planning to open at least one office, if not several, in Baton Rouge. The group’s leaders have been in talks with advertising firms in New Orleans about campaigns to educate people about how to navigate the FEMA process for grants and loans, how to avoid being defrauded by contractors and how to do some home-salvaging work without any outside help at all. ….

“We’re 11 years after Katrina, and only 60 percent of the housing stock in St. Bernard Parish is back,” Mr. Spain said, referring to a parish just east of New Orleans that was almost entirely destroyed by the levee failures after the hurricane. This time, it was Livingston Parish, just east of Baton Rouge, that was almost entirely flooded. “It’s important that we don’t repeat mistakes whether it’s from Sandy or Katrina or Gustav.”

Part of the issue then was how long it took for homes to be rebuilt and essential services to come back. After Hurricane Katrina, thousands endured extended stays in FEMA trailers, and thousands of others eventually settled down permanently in cities elsewhere, bleeding New Orleans of its population……”

NY Times

“…..There was also Gilles Thévenet, the owner of the High Club, a popular discothèque in Nice that faces the Promenade des Anglais, who swiftly turned his nightclub into a triage center for emergency workers.

Mr. Thévenet was sitting in his office in the back of the building, oblivious to the bloody chaos as the cargo truck careened by, until his security guards rushed in and he ran to the front door. “We heard the weeping, the cries, we saw the crowds,” he said.

“I understood I had to choose…..I decided the first priority was the wounded, to do as much as we could for the emergency responders who were trying to save whomever they could,” he said.

In minutes, the firefighters and first-aid workers began carrying the injured — and the dead — into the club to get them off the promenade, which was thick with running, stumbling, screaming people. Soon, two medical helicopters landed just in front of the disco, where the aid workers performed triage, with the most badly hurt airlifted to hospitals nearby.

Some of Mr. Thévenet’s security staff, who were trained in first aid, worked alongside the firefighters and emergency responders; a room in the club was set aside for the dead…..”

NY Times