Guest editorial. Introduction to the special issue “The L’Aquila earthquake 10 years on (2009-2019): impacts and state-of-the-art” (original) (raw)

The 2009 L'Aquila Earthquake: Findings and Implications

The 6th of April 2009 Mw=6.3 earthquake in L' Aquila, central Italy, provides a broad range of useful outcomes and points for consideration in relation to all disciplines involved in seismic hazard assessment, planning and recovery. The event provides an important case-study, most notably because moderate magnitude earthquakes in areas of high population density, such as this, present a high risk in extensional settings (including Europe at large), where their occurrence is relatively common. The L'Aquila event resulted in the highest earthquake death toll in the EU since the 1980 Irpinia (Italy) quake and the highest economic loss due to seismic activity since the 1999 Athens earthquake.

Introducing the special issue on the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake

Bollettino di Geofisica Teorica …, 2011

The 28 th National Congress of the Gruppo Nazionale di Geofisica della Terra Solida held in Trieste in November 2009, hosted a special session dedicated to the earthquake that only six months before devastated L'Aquila and many ancient villages spread along the Aterno Valley (Abruzzo, central Italy). We resume here the main geophysical characteristics of that long seismic sequence, before introducing in brief the contents of eight papers that we have solicited amongst the thirty-seven presented in Trieste, plus other three coming from other sessions, all of them dealing with the L'Aquila earthquake.

LAquila Earthquake 1

In April 2009 L'Aquila (Italy) experienced a series of seismic shocks culminated with a 6.2MMs earthquake. The disaster caused mass scale destruction upon the city and adjacent areas. It was the worst earthquake disaster experienced in Italy since Irpinia, 1980. Although, several alarming forecasts were signalled by scientific community, the national authorities did not launch the warnings. Residential and historical complexes did not included anti-seismic technologies despite of the great seismicity of the region. Central government mobilised considerable economic and manpower efforts to assist survivors in the immediate aftermath. However, considerable critique was launched against short and long-set strategies imposed by the government. These solely focussed on the use of significant public investments to produce expensive anti seismic complexes for survivors instead of focussing on reconstruction and rehabilitation of local economies. This highlighted vulnerabilities within the socio-political and organisational structure in Italy which enhanced the impact of the disaster. This paper recommends higher vigilance upon bureaucratic corruption, anti-seismic assessment for residential/public complexes, and the instauration of a monetary fund for reconstructing and rehabilitating regions affected by natural disasters.

Rebuilding L’Aquila following the 2009 earthquake

Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering, 2011

On April 6 th 2009, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake devastated L'Aquila, Italy and the surrounding region. This study examines processes of recovery and reconstruction in L'Aquila over the one-year period between the April 2009 and 2010. Unlike past Italian earthquakes, the reconstruction of L'Aquila was administered by the central government for the first several months, with control ceded to the regional government in January 2010. Data were collected through 18 semi-structured face-to-face interviews with community leaders, public officials and building industry experts who are establishing priorities and shaping post-earthquake decision-making. This paper investigates the prioritization and process for post-earthquake reconstruction, integration of local community organizations and awareness of seismic risk both before and after the earthquake. Although leaders were satisfied with the Civil Protection Agency's emergency response, there was significant disagreement in how rebuilding of different structures should be prioritized. Citizen involvement in decision-making was more prevalent in some communities than others, and may have led to differences in the level of satisfaction residents expressed with reconstruction progress.

Carnelli F., Forino G, Zizzari S., L’Aquila 2009-2016. The earthquake in the Italian social sciences

Sociologia Urbana e Rurale, 2016

The 2009 L’Aquila earthquake has been a watershed in the landscape of Italian social sciences focusing on risk and disaster issues. The massive destruction provoked by the event, whose epicentre was located just below a town of 70,000 inhabitants, together with the mediatization of its controversial post-disaster management has stirred a tsunami of discourses in publications edited by Italian researchers. This paper aims to provide an overview of the main studies edited by Italian scholars, sorted by four themes: mediatisation, role of local communities in post-disaster management, socio-cultural aspects of housing, other relevant aspects.

L’Aquila Earthquake experience

2016

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Measuring the progress of a recovery process after an earthquake: The case of L'aquila, Italy

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction

After the earthquake in 2009, L'Aquila (Italy) started a torturous recovery process, characterized by a delay in the reconstruction of the city center, the political and legal intrigues, and the dissatisfaction of the population with the decisions made and actions taken by the government. Between 2010 and 2014 we formulated a recovery index based on spatial indicators, such as building condition and building use, to measure the progress of the recovery process in L'Aquila. Now, seven years after the earthquake, we are not only interested in measuring the progress of the recovery in L'Aquila, but also in validating the usefulness of the proposed recovery index. To achieve this objective, we are going to consider the same set of spatial indicators and expert criteria that we considered to determine the progress of the recovery in L'Aquila by 2010, 2012, and 2014. Over these years, the city center of L'Aquila was selected as the sampling area, to establish the progress of the recovery in the whole city. In 2016 we found that the number of reconstructed buildings and buildings under ongoing construction has significantly increased, followed by the number of inhabited buildings. The number of buildings classified as partially enabled, propped, reconstruction projected, and damaged had greatly decreased by 2016, while the number of demolished buildings and buildings with restricted use slightly increased. The number of buildings with residential and commercial use increased along the main roads by 2016. Paradoxically, while progress was observed in the overall building condition, there was no significant progress in the building use. This poses several questions about the dynamics of the returning process of the former habitants of the city center in L'Aquila. We can conclude that the proposed recovery index is useful for identifying the spatial pattern of the recovery process in an urban area affected by an earthquake. At the same time, this recovery index allows us to quantify the recovery progress based on indicators.