Node • 2012 Emilie Romagne

On May 20th and May 29th, 2012,a series of earthquakes with a magnitude above 5 hit the Emilia region, near Ferrara, north of Bologna.

The magnitudes of the main events were of 5.9 (May 20th) and 5.8 (May 29th), respectively 6km and 11km undergound. Many aftershocks of which a number of strong ones occured along the East-West fault. Damage to historical heritage and industrial facilities is consequent. Evidence shows that liquefaction also occured. The earthquakes have caused more than 20 deaths - a few of the deceased were at work when they died. Since 2003, the zone where these earthquakes occured is in seismic zone type 3 (there are a number of categories, zone 1 corresponds to very high seismicity and zone 4 to low seismicity). Before then, the question of earthquakes was generally not taken into account in this region of Italy.

Technical information is available on the following websites :

http://zonesismiche.mi.ingv.it/

http://www.ingv.it/primo-piano/comunicazione/2012/05200508/

http://www.eqclearinghouse.org/2012-05-20-italy-it/

http://dsg.uniroma1.it/Sorrentino/Download/Emilia2012_DecaniniLiberatoreLiberatoreSorrentino_v1.pdf