How to survive earthquakes: the example of Norcia

Abstract

In this paper lessons are extracted from the comparison between the very different consequences that similar earthquakes had on the neighbouring towns of Norcia and Amatrice during the 2016 seismic crisis of central Italy. It was found that the differences in damage were essentially due to the strengthening of most houses in Norcia done during the previous decades. This is also likely to lead to a much faster recover of the economy and livelihood in Norcia, as Amatrice needs to be entirely rebuilt.