Italy earthquake
An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 Richter occurred on 6 April 2009 at 3:32 am local time in central Italy. The epicentre was located in l'Aquila Province (about 100 kilometres North East of Rome). The Italian Operational Committee in Rome was activated immediately after the event, and an advance team was deployed to the site two hours later. The level of the emergency was instantly declared as “national”. At least 298 people died in the earthquake, 1500 were injured and tens of thousands were made homeless.
Response of the Community Civil Protection Mechanism
The Community Civil Protection Mechanism was activated shortly after the earthquake and the Commission's civil protection Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) remained in close contact with the Italian civil protection authorities over the days and weeks following the earthquake. A number of Member States offered their assistance through the Mechanism to cope with the disaster. However, Italy managed the immediate response to the earthquake without any external assistance.
On 10 April 2009, Italy requested, through the Mechanism, technical experts to support the post-earthquake Italian efforts in assessment of the stability of buildings damaged by the earthquake.
A team of eight technical experts from France, Germany, Greece, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, the European Commission Joint Research Centre and a MIC Liaison Officer was dispatched by the MIC to l'Aquila from 18-24 April. Its main role consisted in participating in the assessment of damaged buildings, churches and cultural heritage buildings. At least 50,000 buildings were affected by the earthquake. A detailed technical report by the Mechanism expert team has been handed to the Italian Civil Protection authorities.
A Mobile Unit for post-earthquake assessment - STEP (Strategies and Tools for Early Post-Earthquake Assessment) - that was co-funded by the European Commission was also deployed on site to support the Italian authorities.
Assessment mission technical report
Mechanism expert team on-site
Damaged building in L'Aquila region
Damaged cars and debris in L'Aquila region
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