In the words of President Florindo and Director Stramondo, the Institute's memory on the tenth anniversary of the events that hit the central Apennines, with the initiatives promoted by the Earthquake Department to promote knowledge and memory of those events.
Ten years after August 24, 2016, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) recalls one of the most complex, extensive and destructive seismic sequences in the recent history of the central Apennines, with over 150.000 earthquakes located in the area in the last decade.
Since the early hours of the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that struck the municipalities of Accumoli (RI) and Arquata del Tronto (AP) on the night of August 24, INGV staff have worked tirelessly, employing all of their technical, scientific, and operational capabilities, to provide assistance to the affected communities and the country as a whole: from researching the earthquake's surface geological effects to assessing its impact on homes and infrastructure, through expanding seismic monitoring networks, identifying potential local amplification effects, and providing concrete support to residents.
“On this significant day Our first thoughts go to the 299 victims, their families and communities of Amatrice, Accumoli, Arquata del Tronto and the other areas of the central Apennines hit by that long seismic sequence”, declares the President of INGV, Fabio Florindo. For the INGV, this anniversary is also an opportunity to remember the great commitment of the Institute's staff who, from the first hours and for many months thereafter, worked day and night to monitor the sequence, analyze the data, and support the Civil Protection system..
Much has changed in the last ten years. We have a better understanding of the seismic hazard in our region, monitoring networks have been further developed, and we can count on a 24-hour surveillance system. But a greater ability to observe and understand earthquakes doesn't mean we're immune to their consequences. We can't know when and where the next major earthquake will strike. However, we know that Italy will continue to experience major earthquakes. The point, then, is use the time we have to reduce the vulnerability of buildings and infrastructure and to raise awareness among citizensScientific knowledge and monitoring have made great strides. Our responsibility today is to ensure that this knowledge increasingly contributes to prevention decisions. I believe that, ten years after the 2016 earthquake, this is also a concrete way to remember what happened and the people who lost their lives that night., he adds Florindo.
The Amatrice earthquake demonstrated that, already in 2016, the INGV was a scientifically and technically mature institution, capable of acquiring, with its seismic and geodetic networks, data of unprecedented quality; capable of systematically using the most advanced technologies, such as satellite data, to better understand the phenomena underway and as input for numerical and analog models; capable of ensuring the operational continuity of seismic surveillance services even in the face of seismic activity that, in the first days after August 24th, reached several hundred events daily., remember the Director of the INGV Earthquake Department, Salvatore Stramondo. “Our scientific community has never stopped studying the mechanisms at the origin of an earthquake and the evolution of seismicity in the area and in Central Italy, working tirelessly to increase knowledge of what happened and put it at the service of public safetyThe technical and summary reports produced by the Institute's Operational Groups have laid the foundation for subsequent scientific literature. Scientific research on the Amatrice earthquake and the entire 2016 Central Italy seismic sequence is vast and continues to produce studies in major international peer-review journals..
"The memory of Amatrice and the thought of the victims oblige us to never lower our guard.Even today, the affected areas face a delicate and long reconstruction process. For our part the commitment remains unchanged in carrying out excellent scientific research which, appropriately translated, increasingly allows us to build houses, schools and infrastructures made to resist"he concludes Stramondo.
To commemorate the seismic sequence of 2016-2017, the INGV is promoting a series of initiatives aimed at knowledge and memory of events, to describe the activities carried out and make the wealth of data and studies accumulated over the years available to citizens.
The initiatives hub can be reached from Web page "The seismic sequence in central Italy", continuously updated, from which the public can access various in-depth paths:
- la story map “Strong earthquakes in central Italy in 2016-2017": an interactive journey with maps, multimedia content, and a variety of languages to discover the long seismic sequence and the INGV's response;
- theinitiative “Keepers of Memory": an invitation to those who experienced firsthand the events of ten years ago to collect testimonies and build together the first map of memories of the earthquakes in Italy;
- a specific section dedicated to scientific and popular articles published over the years by INGV researchers;
- timeline, seismic sequence animations, photo gallery and video library.
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