Deadly earthquakes hit Italy all the time, and here’s why
AMATRICE, ITALY — More than 240 people are dead and dozens more missing after an earthquake hit the central Italian town of Amatrice.
The magnitude 6.2 quake was devastating, but it was merely one in a series of deadly seismic events that regularly hit the country.
According to the New York Times, Italy is one of Europe’s most seismically active countries. Numerous fault lines run through the Apennine mountain range, and the country sits near where the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collide.
To Italy’s west sits the Tyrrhenian Sea, which holds a sedimentary basin that is slowly spreading as a result of interaction between the plates. Meanwhile, toward the east, subduction is causing the smaller Adria microplate to slip beneath the Eurasian plate, reports the International Business Times.
All this movement is pulling the region’s crust in different directions, causing a buildup of tension that will eventually be released in the form of earthquakes.
Seismic events in Italy, such as the most recent quake in Amatrice, tend to be more shallow, and thus more damaging. Stronger quakes that have hit Asia with fewer casualties are mostly due to the temblors occurring deeper underground.
The magnitude 6.2 quake was devastating, but it was merely one in a series of deadly seismic events that regularly hit the country.
According to the New York Times, Italy is one of Europe’s most seismically active countries. Numerous fault lines run through the Apennine mountain range, and the country sits near where the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collide.
To Italy’s west sits the Tyrrhenian Sea, which holds a sedimentary basin that is slowly spreading as a result of interaction between the plates. Meanwhile, toward the east, subduction is causing the smaller Adria microplate to slip beneath the Eurasian plate, reports the International Business Times.
All this movement is pulling the region’s crust in different directions, causing a buildup of tension that will eventually be released in the form of earthquakes.
Seismic events in Italy, such as the most recent quake in Amatrice, tend to be more shallow, and thus more damaging. Stronger quakes that have hit Asia with fewer casualties are mostly due to the temblors occurring deeper underground.
Category
🗞
News