Moderately dangerous earthquake in Southern Italy (Cosenza area, Calabria)

 

Last update: December 28, 2014 at 11:33 pm by By Armand Vervaeck

Earthquake-report
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Update 23:07 UTC : People in the Cosenza area are in fear and are standing on the street as the aftershocks continue. Below the list with aftershocks so far. We expect them to continue all night long and also expect some stronger ones M3 to M4 to happen during the nightly hours. As earthquakes cannot be predicted, nobody in the world (including the Italian scientists) can predict how strong the aftershocks will be

Update 22:46 UTC : Multiple aftershocks so far, the strongest one being a M3.5

Update 22:18 UTC : Based on earlier earthquakes and the location of the epicenter, we expect that this earthquake will have a divergent mechanism in which  plates are forced apart from each other. Update : The BeachBall below shows exactly what we expected.
 “Understanding Beach Balls” article

INGV shaking map below. INGV expects slight to max. moderate shaking near Cosenza

Update 22:14 UTC : USGS (USA) reports a Magnitude of M4.6 at a depth of 13.6 km. The map below shows that the Cosenza area is a very high risk earthquake area.

Update 22:03 UTC : We lower our expectations from “dangerous” to “moderately dangerous” as local INGV reports a Magnitude of M4.4 at a depth of 11 km.

Update 21:57 UTC : Based on the current preliminary earthquake data, earthquake-report.com does expect at least some slight damage like cracks in walls, fallen tiles, etc.
An earthquake at extremely shallow depth (hypocenter or breaking point in between 0 and 15 km) might inflict serious damage and injuries in populated areas. The earthquake type is almost always strike-slip related (2 sides of a fault gliding horizontally next to each other). Extremely shallow strike-slip earthquakes are often inflicting minor damage from M3.8 on. They often lead to injuries and serious damage from M4.8 on.

368 km SW of Tirana, Albania / pop: 374,801 / local time: 22:43:39.9 2014-12-28
50 km N of Catanzaro, Italy / pop: 95,251 / local time: 22:43:39.9 2014-12-28
11 km E of Cosenza, Italy / pop: 72,998 / local time: 22:43:39.9 2014-12-28