We've moved from Baltimore, Maryland USA to Venice, Italy in pursuit of living our dream!



Friday, June 21, 2013

Keeping up with the news: Another terremoto this morning

At 10:34 am this morning another earthquake hit Northern Italy, and we felt it here in Sant'Elena.  I was reading a book sitting on my bed when I felt the bed move back and forth quite a few times. On occassion when a large cruise ship passes by our building will rattle a bit, but this was different. I looked up, and the glass chandelier above me was swaying side to side, side to side.

Wanting to know if others in the area had felt it, I posted a message on Facebook where I was sure several of my local friends would see it. Sure enough, others in Venice and right out side Venice on the mainland in Mestre had felt it also. Magnitude 5.2, depth 10 km.  The news reports some damage, no loss of life.   The epicenter was in the vicinity of  Massa and Carrera, located a bit north of Florence and east of La Spezia on the Ligurian sea below Genoa.  I waited for an aftershock but felt none, thankfully.

Later in the day I noted that there were aftershocks, LOTS of them.  Every few minutes since the first earthquake there have been much smaller shocks, most registering between 2-2.5 on the Richter scale. The latest one was just 23 minutes ago. We haven't felt any of those here. Thankful.

1 comment:

Dianne said...

Wow, Karen. I had heard nothing about earthquakes in Italy. Guess that because no one was killed. The old adage of the news "If it bleeds, it leads" in force here I guess.
I felt earthquakes twice in Chicago. One when we were living in the suburbs -- my husband was in LA and I was the one in an earthquake. I didn't know what it was at first, thinking a rather large truck had gone by behind our house, but then knew it wasn't that.
The second time I was seated at our dining room table, reading a book. I felt like something moved behind me (our China hutch was behind me). Then I glanced at our hi-rise window and saw the glass move in the rubber boot.
No damage, either time but kind of strange just the same. Both times the quake was located several hundreds of miles south of Chicago in the Morris fault which, if it weren't in farmland, some say that it would be a more dangerous earthquake region than the San Andreas Fault in San Francisco.
Stay safe!