6 CAR BOMBINGS KILLS 17 AS L'AQUILA EARTHQUAKE KILLS 250
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The 6 April 2009 Baghdad bombings were six car bombings across the Iraqi captial of Baghdad, though it was not known if the attacks were a result of coordination and planning or merely coincedence.
The attacks came a week after Iraqi forces putting down an uprising by members of an Awakening Council angry over the arrest of their commander.
Despite a seeming decline in violence since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the capability of many armed groups to strike with deadly results still exists. Though the government insists it is only detaining those wanted for grave crimes, certain fighters -- many of them former insurgents -- see it as settling sectarian scores. To this end some 250 Iraqis were killed in violent attacks in the month of March Attack The bombings in the Shia neighbourhood of Sadr City had at least 10 deaths and 60 other injuries. In the central Allawi district, another explosion killed four people and wounded 15 others. A car bomb targeted the convoy of a senior interior ministry official resulting in one one civilian death and another policeman dead while four policemen were injured in a southeastern neighbourhood of New Baghdad. A vehicle explosion near a market in the district of Hussainiya resulted in two other deaths and 12 others wounded. Another car bomb near the Doura district, killed four people and injured 15 more.
The 2009 L'Aquila earthquake was an earthquake of 6.3 moment magnitude that occurred in the central Italian region of Abruzzo on 6 April 2009, following a series of about a hundred minor tremors since January 2009, including a 4.0-magnitude one on 30 March. The majority of the damage occurred in the medieval city of L'Aquila (capital city of the Abruzzo region) and the surrounding villages. 297 people are known to have died, making this the deadliest earthquake to hit Italy since the 1980 Irpinia earthquake. This earthquake was caused by movement on a NW-SE trending normal fault according to moment tensor solutions.Although Italy lies in a tectonically complex region, the central part of the Appenines has been characterised by extensional tectonics since the Pliocene epoch (i.e. about the last 5 million years), with most of the active faults being normal in type and NW-SE trending. The extension is due to the back-arc basin in the Tyrrhenian Sea opening faster than the African Plate is colliding with the Eurasian Plate. The earthquake occurred at 01:32 GMT (03:32 CEST local time) at the relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) and with an epicentre at 42.423°N, 13.395°E or approximately 90 kilometres (60 mi) north-east of Rome, at the village of Paganica near to the city of L'Aquila. The earthquake was reported to measure 6.3 on the moment magnitude scale. Italy frequently experiences earthquakes but it is uncommon for them to be very deadly. The last major earthquake was the 5.9 magnitude 2002 Molise earthquake which killed more than 25 people and was the deadliest in 20 years. Earthquakes mark the history of L'Aquila, a city built on the bed of an ancient lake, providing a soil structure that amplifies seismic waves. The city was struck by earthquakes in 1315, 1349, 1452, 1501, 1646, 1703, and 1706. The earthquake of February 1703, which caused devastation across much of central Italy, largely destroyed the city and killed around 5,000 people. The earthquake caused damage to between 3,000 and 11,000 buildings in the medieval city of L'Aquila. Several buildings also collapsed. 297 people were killed by the earthquake, including two Czechs, five Romanian citizens, two Palestinians, one Greek citizen, one French citizen, one Ukrainian citizen and one Israeli citizen, and approximately 1,000 people were injured. Only 20 of the victims were children.Around 66,000 people were made homeless. The main earthquake was preceded by two smaller earthquakes the previous day. The earthquake was felt as far away as Rome (92 kilometres (57 mi) away), in other parts of Lazio, as well as Marche, Molise, Umbria and Campania. Schools remained closed in the Abruzzo region. Most of the inhabitants of L'Aquila abandoned their homes and the city itself; in the city centre of L'Aquila, and the nearby village of Paganica which was also badly damaged, many streets were impassable due to fallen masonry. The hospital at L'Aquila, where many of the victims were brought, suffered damage in the 4.8 aftershock which followed the main earthquake an hour later. Powerful aftershocks, some only slightly weaker than the main shock, were felt throughout the following 2 days. Villages in the valley along Strada Statale 17 just outside l'Aquila suffered the greatest damage while medieval mountain hill towns lying high above the valley suffered little damage. Onna was reported to be mostly leveled with 38 deaths among the 350 residents. The villages of Villa Sant'Angelo and San Pio delle Camere were badly damaged. Fatalities were reported in Poggio Picenze, Tornimparte, Fossa, Totani and San Pio delle Camere. Many of L'Aquila's medieval buildings have been damaged. The apse of the Basilica of Saint Bernardino of Siena, L'Aquila's largest Renaissance church was seriously damaged, and its campanile has collapsed. Almost the whole dome of the 18th-century church of Anime Sante in Piazza Duomo has fallen down. The 13th-century Basilica di Santa Maria di Collemaggio collapsed from the transept to the back of the church and Porta Napoli, the oldest gate to the city, was destroyed in the quake. The third floor of Forte Spagnolo, the 16th-century castle housing the National Museum of Abruzzo, has collapsed, as has the cupola of the 18th-century Baroque church of St Augustine, damaging L'Aquila's state archives. This church was rebuilt after it was destroyed in the 1703 earthquake. The Cathedral of L'Aquila has lost part of its transept and maybe more with the effects of the aftershocks. Slight damage was also reported to the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, but other Roman monuments such as the Colosseum and Roman Forum were unharmed. The damaged Santa Maria Church in the town of PaganicaWhile most of l'Aquila's medieval structures suffered damage, many of its modern buildings suffered the greatest damage, for instance, a dormitory at the university of l'Aquila collapsed. Even some buildings that were believed to be "earthquake-proof" were damaged. L’Aquila Hospital's new wing, which opened in 2000 and was thought capable of resisting almost any earthquake suffered extensive damage and had to be closed. Around 40,000 people who were made homeless by the earthquake found accommodation in tented camps and a further 10,000 were housed in hotels on the coast. Others sought shelter with friends and relatives throughout Italy. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi caused a controversy when he said, in an interview to the German station n-tv, that the homeless victims should consider themselves to be on a "camping weekend" - "They have everything they need, they have medical care, hot food... Of course, their current lodgings are a bit temporary. But they should see it like a weekend of camping."To clarify his thought, he also told the people in a homeless camp: "Head to the beach. It’s Easter. Take a break. We’re paying for it, you’ll be well looked after." The billionaire prime minister offered his own houses to some of the survivors. Poor building standards or construction materials seem to have further contributed to the large number of victims. According to firefighters and other rescuers, some concrete elements of the fallen buildings "seemed to have been made poorly, possibly with sand". An official at Italy's Civil Protection agency, Franco Barberi, said that "in California, an earthquake like this one would not have killed a single person." According to Italian media, L'Aquila's chief prosecutor has opened a probe into possible criminal blame for the collapses. Wikinews has related news: 5.6-magnitude aftershock earthquake strikes Italy The epicentral region saw dozens of significant aftershocks following the main earthquake. The strongest, which hit on 7 April at 19:47 CEST local time measured magnitude 5.3 ML and caused further damage. According to the Italian National Geophysics Institute director Boschi, the aftershock epicentres have migrated south-east, thus lessening the risk of other major shocks that are near to populated areas.
Aftershocks cause safety issues for rescue crews with cranes and backhoes who are searching for injured people among precarious loose bricks and broken timbers of structures in the historic center of L'Aquila, a medieval city. Even a small aftershock can trigger the collapse of seriously damaged walls or parapets. Aftershocks also cause sustained psychological trauma to small children and elderly who have already been traumatized by the main earthquake of 6 April 2009. The Italian government is aware of this psychological trauma situation, and therefore has temporarily relocated thousands of citizens away from the epicentral area.
Within two weeks, it is expected that both the rate and magnitude of aftershocks will decay. During April and May 2009, seismologists will study the full extent of the oval-shaped fault-rupture surface, as illuminated by the sequence of aftershocks, and then make a final determination of the "official" moment magnitude.
As a result of aftershocks, the dome of the Anime Sante Basilica in L'Aquila, already heavily damaged by the main shock, has almost entirely collapsed. Further buildings have collapsed in L'Aquila and in neighbouring boroughs. The aftershock was so strong as to be felt in Rome, where it caused an elderly man to die of cardiac arrest. Only shocks with magnitude 4.0 or higher are listed. There have been dozens of small magnitude aftershocks, Mw 1-3, but these generally do not cause further structural damage. Shocks with magnitude 5.0 or higher are highlighted in light blue. The main shock with moment magnitude 6.3 Mw is highlighted in dark blue. Earthquake magnitude symbols: Mw = moment magnitude scale; mb = body wave magnitude; ML = local magnitude, also known as the Richter magnitude scale. Emergency personnel review damaged buildingsMany Italian companies have offered some sort of help. All Italian mobile companies (Telecom Italia Mobile, Vodafone Italy, WIND (Italy),[citation needed] H3G[citation needed]) as well as some Mobile virtual network operators, sent free minutes and credit to all their pre-paid customers in Abruzzo, suspended billing to all post-paid customers and extended their coverage with additional mobile base stations to cover homeless camps. In addition, some companies sent free mobile phones, SIM Cards and chargers for those who lost their mobiles, and set up a national unique number to send donations to, by placing a call or sending an SMS. Poste Italiane sent to homeless camps some mobile units acting as Postal Office, to allow people to withdraw money from their accounts as well as their retirement. Many companies, such as pay-tv SKY Italia, suspended billing to all customers in Abruzzo, and offered some decoders to homeless camps to allow them to follow the funerals and the news. Ferrovie dello Stato offered its railway sleeping carriage to host some homeless people, and offered free tickets to all people and students living in Abruzzo. AISCAT (Associazione Italiana Società Concessionarie Autostrade e Trafori) declared that all toll-road in Abruzzo will be free of charge. All tax billing for all Abruzzo residents have been suspended by the government, as well as mortgage payments. Italian laboratory technician Giampaolo Giuliani predicted a major earthquake on Italian television a month before, after measuring increased levels of radon emitted from the ground. He was accused of being alarmist by Director of the Civil Defence Guido Bertolaso, and forced to remove his findings from the Internet (old data and descriptions are still on line. He was also reported to police a week before the main quake for "causing fear" among the local population when he predicted an earthquake was imminent in Sulmona, about 50 km (31 mi) from L'Aquila, on 30 March where a 4° quake happened (later Sulmona only suffered minor damages by the 6 April earthquake. Enzo Boschi, the head of the Italian National Geophysics Institute declared: "Every time there is an earthquake there are people who claim to have predicted it. As far as I know nobody predicted this earthquake with precision. It is not possible to predict earthquakes." Predicting earthquakes based on radon emissions has been studied by scientists since the 1970s, but enthusiasm for it has faded due to inconsistent results.
