how are our Italian friends?

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the Earthquake was very strong, is not pleasant for me to say that 250 people have died. I have seen several images of the collapsed  towns and I was near to cry. We speak of something of 700  seismic shocks gone on. 3 little towns got totally destroied:  "Amatrice" , "Accumoli" and "Arquata".  People also dig with their hands to save those who were under the rubble.
 
many thanks.
Yesterday, i was in touch by phone with another GDIY member that lives  at  only 60-80km from the earthquake center and he is ok.

The matter is that at Amatrice many houses (80%) have not received the government funds to secure them for big  earthquakes as this one with the result that now many of them got collapsed. This is the main reason of this big damage.
Amatrice is an old little town with several very old houses that needed to be secured.
BTW seems that several houses get destroyed by bureaucracy and the owners never get the money for them.
Bureaucracy is very big in Italy. 
 
The matter is that the 70% of these houses were cut off from Gov funds for “cost reduction” because they were “second houses”, so, for this decision, they had no rights to have these fund.
In Italy there is the distinction between "first houses" and "second houses", are considered the first houses those ones where people live usually and where they have declared their main resident.  The second houses are the other ones of the same owner, so, for example, if a guy owns 3 houses, only one is his first house and the other two ones are considered second houses, since for italian law each citizen can have one first house only.
Typically the second houses are the houses for holidays and weekends. 
In Italy many people were yet in holidays in these days, so there were a lot of people at Amatrice and at the near little towns when the earthwarke gone up over them.
Now Italian Gov will pay a lot of money more than those funds for this disaster.
 
Thanks for the explanation... I expect some 2nd 3rd homes may be rentals too.

It makes sense for government to help secure primary residences. 2nd or 3rd houses seems a luxury that tax payers shouldn't subsidize.

Sad about all the death and destruction. Very old stone buildings don't fare well in earthquakes.

News reports I read sounded like at least some were primary residences with residents refusing to leave despite losing their homes.

JR
 
The unique owner of subsoul is the Italian Gov, is not as in US that each owner of a land is also the owner of the relative subsoul.
Since the earthwarkes have origin inside subsoul, Italian Gov should avoid the earthwarkes  damages to all citizens and private lands. Italian Gov, being the subsoul owner, has a direct gain for each use of it, so it cannot have only benefits from it.
For this reason it should ensure to the second houses owners funds to secure them.

BTW it is important to say that second houses owners pay a lot of money for the high expensive IMU tax and other ones for these houses. Infact, taxes for these ones are much higher than for the first houses, since the second ones have been considered a luxury.  Moreover the taxes on the first houses  don't exist more from this year.
Italians pay a lot of money for taxes and fees so often they have not so many money to secure their "luxurious" second houses.
 
JohnRoberts said:
Thanks for the explanation... I expect some 2nd 3rd homes may be rentals too.

It makes sense for government to help secure primary residences. 2nd or 3rd houses seems a luxury that tax payers shouldn't subsidize.

Sad about all the death and destruction. Very old stone buildings don't fare well in earthquakes.

News reports I read sounded like at least some were primary residences with residents refusing to leave despite losing their homes.

JR

yes, many second houses are for rental, but however, italians prefer use their second houses for holidays and weekends.

yes, the other 30% were all first houses, but only 11 houses (if I remember well) have received the gov funds since, as seems,
a public employer forget to send the docs of the other fisrt house owners to the local gov so they have not received any fund.

 
To make houses quake-resistant is easier said than done. Depending on quake, forces work very differently. "Shallow" (less than 10 km of depth) equals highly destructive, even if forces at the epicentre are not that strong. In Japan, quake resistance measures most often means rebuilding from scratch. Steel frame can be reinforced by adding diagonal beams, but this only enhances stability for horizontal accelleration (swaying). Vertical accelleration (bouncing) is generally more fatal for both buildings and people. Horizontal + vertical = devastating shatter (e.g. Kobe quake).

Stone houses can be comparatively quake resistant, if build right. A few years ago there was a massive quake in some Chinese province. Everything collapsed (brick, concrete, steel frame, wood etc) except for age-old stone houses built using ancient construction techniques.

Always sad to read about people getting injured and worse due to quakes, especially in areas that have been quake-prone for centuries.
 

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