Earthquakes

8th Oct 2005, 7.6 magnitude.

Preparation - No local disaster planning in place, buildings not designed to withstand earthquakes, communications were poor, few roads and were poorly contructed.

Primary effects - 80,000 deaths from collapsed buildings, 3 million homeless, entire villages and buildings destroyed, water pipelines and electricity lines were broken, cutting off supply, hundereds of thousands of people injured.

Secondary effects - freezing winter conditions shortly after the earthquakes caused more casualties, diseases spread due to little clean water, landslides buried buildings and people, also blocked access to roads and cut off water and electricity supplies and telephone lines.

Immediate responses - Help didn't reach many areas for weeks, people rescued by hand without equipment pr help from emergency services, tents, blankets and medical supplies distributed within a month but not to all areas affected.

Long-term responses - 40,000 people relocated to a new town called Balakot, government money give to people so they rebuild homes themselves, new healthcentres setup, training provided to build earthquakes resistant buildings.

6th Apr 2009, 6.3 magnitude on the richter scale

Preparation - Laws on construction standards, but some modern buildings had not been built as eathquake resistant, Italy has a Civil Protection Department that trains volunteers to help with rescue operations.

Primary effects - 290 deaths, hundreds injured, thousands of buildings destroyed, bridge near town of Fossa collapsed and a water pipe was broken near the town of Paganica.

Secondary effects - afterschocks hampered rescue efforts and caused more damage, fires in collapsed buildings caused more damage, broken water pipe near Paganica caused a landslide.

Immediate response - Italian Prime Minister promised to build a new town to replace L'Aquila as the captial of the area, investigation to look into why modern buildings weren't built as earthquake resistant.