Buildings Collapse as Another Powerful Earthquake Hits Italy

A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit central Italy on Sunday, collapsing more buildings in small cities and towns previously shuddered by tremors in the past two months. There were no immediate reports of casualties, though.

It was a stronger quake than one that struck central Italy on Aug. 24, killing close to 300 people. Thousands of aftershocks have been recorded in the weeks since then, including two exceptionally powerful tremors last Wednesday.

Italy’s emergency services said there was severe damage in numerous locations in the central regions of Umbria and Marche on Sunday. Three people were rescued from debris in the town of Ussita. However, there were no reports of casualties, State broadcaster RAI said.

The monks said the ancient Basilica of St. Benedict in the walled town of Norcia was ravaged by the quake. Images on television showed a collapsed church in the town center and also another church with one side reduced to rubble.

Several towns and villages previously thrashed by the 6.2 quake in August had seen further substantial damage, local authorities said.

“This morning’s quake has hit the few things that were left standing. We will have to start from scratch,” Arquata del Tronto deputy mayor Michele Franchi told Rai television.

Most of these places were largely deserted when the quake hit on Sunday morning at around 7.40 a.m. (2:40 a.m. ET) as residents were already evacuated following the August tragedy.

The earthquake was felt as far as Bolzano in the north, close to the boundary with Austria and as far as the Puglia region in the south at the bottom end of the Italian peninsula.

In Rome, transport authorities had to close down the metro system for checks as the quake was also felt strongly in the capital.

Italy one of the most earthquake prone in Europe

Italy rests on two fault lines, making it one of the most seismically active nations in Europe.

The last major earthquake to hit the country before this year hit the central city of L’Aquila in 2009. Casualties reached more than 300 people.

In 1908, an earthquake followed by a tsunami eradicated an estimated 80,000 people in the southern sections of Reggio Calabria and Sicily. This was the most deadly since the start of the 20th century.

 

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Rome’s historic buildings shaken as earthquake hits central Italy

Rome’s historic center has been shaken by a strong earthquake which has struck central Italy.

One resident who lives near St Peter’s Square said she “felt the apartment shaking and the walls cracking”.

It is not yet known if there are any casualties from the earthquake which measured 5.4 on the Richter scale but there are reports of terrified residents fleeing their apartments.

Tremors were felt from Perugia to Rome, and also in the town of L’Aquila which was hit by an earthquake in 2009.

It comes just two months after an earthquake in the same area killed nearly 300 people and destroyed hilltop villages of Amatrice and a number of small towns in the region.

That more powerful quake measured 6.2 on the Richter scale.

Italy’s National Vulcanology Centre said the epicentre of today’s earthquake was close to Macerata, 50 miles south east of Perugia in central Italy and about 80 miles away from Rome.

The quake struck at 7.11pm local time and eyewitnesses reported centuries old buildings shaking in the tremors which lasted for several seconds.

The mayor of Castel Santangelo Sul Nera, close to the quake’s epicentre, said: “We’re without power, waiting for emergency crews.We can’t see anything. It’s tough. Really tough.”

Software developer Arcangelo Vicedomini, who lives outside Rome, tweeted: “Earthquake in Italy, 5.6 Richter, epicenter 66 km south of Perugia. In Nettuno chandeliers are dancing.”

Worried mother Vanda Wilcox tweeted: “Another big earthquake. Epicentre near Perugia, made the house shake hugely here, frightened us enough to get baby up & go out.”

The quake’s intensity was first measured at an intensity of 5.6 but that number was later revised to 5.4 by the US Geological Survey which said it had a ‘relatively shallow’ depth of only seven miles.

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Exorcism: A Job Too Daunting For Young Priests

An 18^th Century fresco in Fr. Vincenzo Taraborelli’s Roman church shows a possessed woman being held with her mouth open and little devils coming out of her body. “She’s being freed,” he said.

It is a scene Fr. Taraborelli, says he knows well. The 79-year old priest has performed exorcisms – the Catholic ritual of driving out evil spirits – for the past 27 years.

He stumbled into the job when a fellow priest needed assistance. The senior priest didn’t study it and he didn’t know what to do, but his colleague told him what to do, he said.

He has since become one of Rome’s most in demand exorcists, and the Catholic Church is straining to find younger successors.

He often sees up to 30 people a day as he works three days a week from a windowless room behind his church near the Vatican.

Before doing exorcisms, he urges people to see a psychiatrist or a psychologist, and requests them to bring him their prognosis, the priest said. He is in touch with several psychologists who send their patients to him.

A cabinet is lined with many small statues of angels on one side of the room. He stores a supply of sweets in a drawer to hand out to visitors. An official document showing his qualification as an exorcist hangs on the wall.

Before anything else, the father says he gets the room ready. If the person is not doing well, he tries to calm him down by reassuring him. He invites him to join him in prayer, but many are already disturbed when they come to him.

His most noteworthy case concerned a married woman he treated for 13 years.

Another man, who was a Satanist, wanted her,” he remembers. “She refused. So this man told her: ‘You’ll pay for this.’ He cast so-called spells to attract her to him, twice a week.

Then they came to him. He started to pray as she went into a trance. She blurted out insults and blasphemies, and he quickly understood that she was possessed.

As the ritual continued, her condition started to worsen so Fr. Taraborelli told the devil: “in the name of Jesus, I order you to go away”, she started to vomit little metal pins. Aside from pins, she would also vomit hair braids, pieces of wood, little stones, the priest continued.

The concept of possession by the devil is an accepted belief within the Catholic Church. As in the recent killing of 85-year-old French priest Fr. Jacques Hamel in his church in Rouen, France, it is sometimes used to explain murderous behavior.

When two Islamist extremists rushed into the church and knifed Fr. Hamel, he tried to fend them off by shouting “Be gone, Satan!” – an obvious attempt at exorcism.

However, many doubt the whole origin of exorcism and demonic possession.

Non-believers claim the supposed possession by evil spirits is simply a medieval myth or superstition. Those who maintain to be influenced by evil spirits are people suffering from easily justifiable psychiatric or psychological problems, they say.

Fr. Taraborelli rebuffs the cynicism. He argues that someone who isn’t a believer doesn’t believe in the devil either. “But someone who believes knows that the devil exists, you can read it in the gospel,” he added.

No takers of job as exorcist

Fr. Taraborelli shows no indication of desiring to give up his work and his mobile phone rings regularly.

But younger priests are not specifically interested by the prospect of devoting hours in windowless rooms, reading exorcism rites to troubled believers.

“I told the bishop that I can’t find anyone willing to do this. Many of them are scared. Even priests can be scared. It’s a difficult life,” he said.

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Italy Abandons Bid for Rome to Host 2024 Olympic Games

Committee Chief Giovanni Malago announced their decision to formally withdraw its bid for the 2024 Olympic Games in Rome. The Olympic Committee of Italy decided not to stage the Olympic Games due to opposition from the city council.

Rome is not the only one retracting from the bid, Boston and Hamburg also discarded the bid. This means only three countries remains for the Olympic bid, Paris, Los Angeles, and Budapest. The International Olympic Committee will announce its decision in September of 2017.

Malago was in tears when he announced the decision. He believed that Italy would miss out on great investments deriving from the Olympic Games. For the past years, some host countries for the Olympic Games acquired profits amounting to millions of dollars. He said Italy was “made to look like a fool” based on the decision.

Plagued by corruption and trash collection woes

Mayor Virginia Raggi, a populist Five Star Party member said there were more important issues than the Olympic Games. She pointed out the rubbish collection and corruption issues in Rome. Trash collection, considered as one of the primary problems in Rome, is allegedly handled by organized crime syndicates.

Organized crime syndicates allegedly handles trash collection, which Raggi considers as one of the primary problems in the city.

The Five Star Party strongly opposed the hosting of the Olympic Games even before winning control of Rome in June.

However, local government in Italy along with other Rome municipalities with their smaller town councils, supported the bid for the Olympics.

Nevertheless, Malago stated he would not pursue the Olympic bid without the city council’s support.

Back in 2012, Rome bid to host the 2020 Olympics but withdrew the process of the bid. Then Prime Minister Mario Monti believed Italy could not afford it at the time. Hosting the Olympics would cost millions, if not billions worth of taxpayer’s money.

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