I have a relative in Italy but he is in North, thank G-D. This is a terrible tragedy. I have read that a scientist went through the town in a loudspeaker warning people to leave this area a few weeks earlier but was scared off by the mayor. This mayor needs to be jailed.
Yes apparently he had been studying the area since September and went on the loud speaker a month ago. I don't know what that mayor was thinking.. the only logical explanation is possibly because of the geography.. Italy is in the middle of two major tectonic plates, so it may be that there are earthquake scares often. The mayor must be investigated about this.
My prayers are with your family MW..
There is a big debate about this here, when something like this happens people alwayls want to believe that it could have been avoided in someway. If I got it correctly the researcher observed an unnatural Radon presence in the zone and he figured out that a quake was imminent, but while the presence of Radon maybe related to quakes it doesn't actually mean that the event is imminent: it may takes weeks, months or even years for the quake to take place and it may even not take place at all...
I mean even the Japaneses, which are the highest experts in sismology say that you can't predict when a quake strikes... The only thing people can do is build "quake-proof" buildings and we have laws in Italy that prescribe the building of NEW houses and buildings with those standards, but the problem is that people in small towns and particularly in those areas live mostly in old fashion buildings which aren't quake-proof, it takes a lot of money to upgrade them to those standards and most of people can't or won't...
So now here we are: 251 dead, 11 people are still missing, a 1000 injuried (most of them are not seriosly in danger) and a huge amount of damage to people houses, around 25.000 people are homeless... (At least we had efficent rescues G-d bless them)
I'm praying for all of them.
I hope this time they will properly use money to rebuild people houses as fast as churches and historical monuments which are also damaged, unlike they did with the previous quake in Umbria where they were able to rebuild the old Assisi's basilica (which was completely destroyed) within just few years while lots of families in that same area are still living in containers waiting for theyr home to be fixed...
P.s We felt the quake here in northern Italy too on the same day, but it was a different one, with a different epicenter here in northern Italy
P.s II The reason the quake in Abruzzo caused so much damaged was because the epicenter was relatively quite near to the surface