Emergency investigation as Italian mountain develops huge crack after massive earthquake

November 2016 – ITALY – A researcher has discovered a crack, which is ten kilometers long and is up to half a meter tall in the Italian mountain, which is just 40kms away from where a 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck on Sunday in Norcia. The researcher Paolo Marco De Martini said that it was the biggest deformation he had seen since the 1980 Irpinia earthquake, which left 2,483 people dead and 7,700 injured.

Mr. De Martini said that the crack “coincides with the seismic fault that generated the earthquake. He said: “Underground rocks are much more compressed, but on the surface, rupture caused by the earthquake tends to open up a bit like a fan. “That is why along ten kilometers of fracture, we also observe cracks that run parallel to the main one, dozens or sometimes hundreds of meters away.”

Many landmarks in Rome were damaged by the 6.5 magnitude earthquake that struck on Sunday morning. Cracks have even appeared in the city’s iconic Coliseum. More than 30,000 people have been left homeless following the earthquake on Sunday, which was the most powerful to hit the country since 1980. The geologists say that they must act quickly to investigate the cracks because they could become filled with snow making it impossible to explore them. –Express