A magnitude 6.6 earthquake yesterday struck central Italy, causing the collapse of more buildings in small cities and towns already shaken by tremors in the past two months, although there no immediate reports of casualties.
It was a bigger quake than one which hit central Italy on Aug. 24, killing almost 300 people. There have been thousands of aftershocks in the weeks since then, including two particularly strong tremors on Wednesday last week.
Italy’s emergency services said there was serious damage in multiple locations in the central regions of Marche and Umbria yesterday.
SERIOUS DAMAGE
State broadcaster RAI said three people were rescued from rubble in the town of Ussita, but there were no reports of deaths.
The ancient Basilica of St Benedict in the walled town of Norcia, almost 100km from Perugia, was devastated by the quake, the monks said.
Images on television showed one side of the church reduced to rubble and another church in the town center also collapsed.
Local authorities said many towns and villages already battered by the magnitude 6.2 quake in August had seen further significant damage.
“This morning’s quake has hit the few things that were left standing. We will have to start from scratch,” Arquata del Tronto deputy mayor Michele Franchi told Rai television.
DESERTED CITIES
Many of these places were evacuated after the August disaster and were largely deserted yesterday morning when the quake hit at about 7:40am.
The earthquake was felt as far north as Bolzano, near the border with Austria and as far south as the Puglia region at the southern tip of the Italian peninsula.
It was also felt strongly in the capital Rome, where transport authorities closed down the metro system for checks.
Italy sits on two fault lines, making it one of the most seismically active countries in Europe.
Before this year, the last major earthquake to hit the country struck the central city of L’Aquila in 2009, killing more than 300 people.
The most deadly since the start of the 20th century came in 1908, when an earthquake followed by a tsunami killed an estimated 80,000 people in the southern regions of Reggio Calabria and Sicily.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant
‘TERRORISM’: Israel slammed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, saying that he has revealed his ‘true face’ by embracing the ‘rapists and murderers of Hamas’ Hamas yesterday announced that it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organizations, including Fatah, to work together for “national unity,” with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅), who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza. “Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national
Soaring high across a gorge in the rugged Himalayas, a newly finished bridge would soon help India entrench control of disputed Kashmir and meet a rising strategic threat from China. The Chenab Rail Bridge, the highest of its kind in the world, has been hailed as a feat of engineering linking the restive Kashmir valley to the vast Indian plains by train for the first time. However, its completion has sparked concern among some in a territory with a long history of opposing Indian rule, already home to a permanent garrison of more than 500,000 soldiers. India’s military brass say the strategic benefits