The 1980 Irpinia earthquake ( it, Terremoto dell'Irpinia) took place in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

on 23 November 1980, with a

moment magnitude The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mw, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. It was defined in a 1979 pape ...

of 6.9 and a maximum

Mercalli intensity The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the eff ...

of X (''Extreme''). It left at least 2,483 people dead, at least 7,700 injured, and 250,000 homeless.

Event

The quake struck at 18:34 UTC (19:34

local Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...

), centered on the village of Castelnuovo di Conza,

Campania (man), it, Campana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demog ...

, Southern Italy. The first jolt was followed by 90 aftershocks. There were three main shocks, each with

epicenter The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

s in a different place, within 80 seconds. The largest shock registered a peak acceleration of 0.38g, with 10 seconds of motion greater than 0.1g. The three main shocks combined produced 70 seconds of shaking greater than 0.01g. Thus the shaking was severe and lasted a long time. Towns in the province of Avellino were hit the hardest. In

Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Avellino in the Campania region of southern Italy. It has been a historical spot of significance in mezzogiorno history. Information Geography Just on a hilltop near the Fredano ...

, 300 were killed, including 27 children in an

orphanage An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or ab ...

, and eighty percent of the town was destroyed and many historical buildings were left in ruins as the town never fully recovered as of 2021. One hundred were killed in

Balvano Balvano ( Lucano: ) is a small city and a ''commune'' in the province of Potenza (Basilicata, southern Italy). The recent history of Balvano is connected to several catastrophes. In 1944, a steam train stalled in a nearby railway tunnel, suffocat ...

when a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

church collapsed during Sunday services. The towns of Lioni, Conza della Campania (near the epicenter), and Teora were destroyed, and dozens of structures in Naples were levelled, including a 10-story apartment building. Damage was spread over more than 26,000 km², including

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

and Salerno.

Rebuilding

The

Italian government The government of Italy is in the form of a democratic republic, and was established by a constitution in 1948. It consists of legislative, executive, and judicial subdivisions, as well as a Head of State, or President. The Italian Constituti ...

spent 59 trillion lire on reconstruction, while other nations sent contributions.

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

contributed 32 million

United States dollar The United States dollar ( symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the officia ...

s (USD) and the United States US$70 million. However, in the early 1990s a major corruption scandal emerged. Of the billions of lire that were earmarked for aid to the victims and rebuilding, the largest part disappeared from the earthquake reconstruction funds in the 1980s. Of the $40 billion spent on earthquake reconstruction, an estimated $20 billion went to create an entirely new social class of millionaires in the region, $6.4 billion went to the criminal Camorra, whereas another $4

billion Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: *1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is its only current meaning in English. * 1,000,000,000,000, i. ...

went to politicians in bribes. Only the remaining $9.6

, a quarter of the total amount, was actually spent on people's needs. The Camorra entered the construction industry after the quake.

Footnotes

External links

INGV - sismica Map

Memory and Images Earthquake 1980

INGV page on the earthquake
!-- Click on Comm. for more details --> * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Irpinia Earthquake, 1980 1980 disasters in Italy 1980 earthquakes 1980 in Italy 20th century in Campania Disasters in Campania Earthquakes in Italy Guardia Lombardi November 1980 events in Europe Province of Avellino

Event

Rebuilding

See also

Footnotes

Further reading

External links