Four earthquakes of magnitude above five hit central Italy on Wednesday, triggering a deadly avalanche that swept into Rigopiano Hotel, at the foot of the Gran Sasso mountain.
The tremors came right after heavy snowfall in the mountainous areas around the town of Amatrice, a combination bound to yield high avalanche risk. Up until now, rescuers have removed three bodies from the hotel and the search for up to 35 more people continues, according to BBC. The Italian Fire Department reported that the hotel had been completely swept away from the avalanche and debris was scattered as far as 100 meters from the hotel structure.
The first above five magnitude earthquake struck at 10:25 a.m. local time, with a magnitude of around M 5.3, near Amatrice. Within an hour, it was followed by two more quakes, of magnitude M 5.7 and M 5.6. At 14:33 p.m., a fourth earthquake of M 5.1 occurred. The first three quakes were around 9km deep, while the fourth was even shallower, at 6.9km depth, according to the US Geological Survey. In total, more than 10 earthquakes struck central Italy on Wednesday, all of them with an epicenter around Amatrice, in the mountainous regions of Marche, Lazio and Abruzzo.
As USGS reports, the January 18, 2017 tremors continue a sequence of earthquakes that includes:
- The August 24, 2016, M 6.2 earthquake that devastated the town of Amatrice and caused almost 300 fatalities, and
- The M 6.1 and M 6.6 earthquakes in central Italy at the end of October 2016, which caused damage but no fatalities.
The location of the sequence is in a seismic gap between the 1997 Umbria-Marche and 2009 L' Aquila aftershock sequences; the January 18, 2017 earthquakes are located to the north of the northern extent of the 2009 sequence. They are the result of shallow normal faulting on the NW-SE oriented faults that cut through the Apennines; an expression of the east-west extensional tectonics that now dominate along the Apennine belt, forcing it to pull apart at a rate of roughly 3mm per year.
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