Rio Jordan & Lewis McPartlin| Reporters
It was on Monday the 21st of August 2017 at 8:57pm that the island of Ischia fell victim to a devastating earthquake.
The island of Ischia is in the region of the metropolitan city of Naples. This tiny island is only 10km wide and 7km long and was almost completely decimated by a brutal earthquake.
Two tourists lost their lives to this traumatic force of nature, and another 39 are injured. There was one earthquake which was then followed by 4 aftershocks.
Two towns were affected, Casamicciola and Lacco Ameno. Carlo Doglioni, the head of the institute for Geophysics and Volcanology, stated that the earthquake was of a 4.0 magnitude and that
‘‘It was light, and if there was damage it was superficial, five kilometres below ground.’’
He also stated that the brunt of this would have been more directed to one area, causing this specific area to be more fragile, consequently making the buildings even more vulnerable.
It was in the town of Casamicciola that three brothers were found alive in the rubble. The youngest was seven and a half months old, the middle child seven years old and the eldest 11 years old.
The youngest was rescued during the night the middle child was rescued from the debris the morning after. The 11-year-old was rescued later again after spending a whole 16 hours under the rubble of his home. He only attracted attention after banging a broom against the wreckage.
The two oldest brothers only survived as one of the them told the other that they should hide under the bed. Without a doubt, this gesture saved their lives.
On the evening of the earthquake over 1,000 tourists and residents were ferried off the island, the rest were evacuated the following morning. Most were not given the chance to collect their belongings due to safety concerns over the buildings structural integrity.
For us to wrap our heads round this disaster, we should first understand what an Earthquake is.
Why Do Earthquakes Happen?
Earthquakes are caused when huge rocks under the earth crack from intense pressure. When this happens, a lot of energy is released in the form of seismic waves.
What are Seismic Waves?
This is the term used for tremors and shakes when these rocks snap. The seismic waves travel from the deep in the Earth’s crust, or even the Earth’s mantle (the layer of rock and molten rock beneath the crust) up to the surface of the Earth, producing an earthquake. Earthquakes can also be caused when the slabs of big rocks under the earth shift and move slightly, if they move into another chunk of rock and rub against it, this will also produce seismic waves, and will cause an Earthquake.
Can we predict earthquakes?
Earthquakes are completely random and are virtually impossible to predict. Movement beneath the earth is spontaneous, monitoring it is hard to do, and you may be waiting for shifts with the rocks for a long time.
Has this happened before?
The only fortunate occurrence in this event was that the death toll was not to the same magnitude as in 1883 were an earthquake of the same magnitude struck this island and caused over 2,000 deaths. This partially caused the weakened state of most the buildings on the island.
Sadly, a few minutes of tragedy will take decades for this community to recover from.
Rio Jordan and Lewis Mcpartlin
