Mw 6.3 L'Aquila earthquake (Central Italy)
on April 06th, 2009 at 01:32 UTC

An earthquake of magnitude Mw 6.3 occurred on 06/04/2009 in central Italy, at 7 km North-West of L'Aquila (Abruzzo Region) at 01:32 UTC (03:32 local time).

59 km E Terni (pop 110,412)
7 km NW L'aquila (pop 72,279)
6 km S Pizzoli (pop 3,378)

More information on the main shock is available here (Pictures, maps, ...)
or visit Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia web site and special page



Epicenter location	Aftershocks distribution
(click to enlarge)	(View animation)	(click to enlarge)
Waveforms The Aquila earthquake as recorded by seismic stations: Source : MedNet, ReNaSS, Strasbourg (EOST), Toulouse (OMP), Clermont-Ferrand (OPGC), Grenoble (OG), Nice Sophia Antipolis,, GEOFON_Network, Aristotle University Thessaloniki Network, Czech Regional Seismic Network, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Switzerland).	Moment Tensors
Fault plane determination Quick Assessment of the fault plane. By Sokos, Zahradnik & Tselentis
InSAR InSAR with ALOS PALSAR and ENVISAT ASAR. By Panagiotis Elias, Pierre Briole, Marcello de Michele, Daniel Raucoules
Determination of focal depth Determination of focal depth with BB data. By Emolo, Zahradnik
Macroseismic field survey Macroseismic field survey (ARSO). By Ina Cecić
Additional information INGV special page, More details and shakemaps Here, Results and Relocations Here CEA special page (french) GEO AZUR special page IPGP special page (french) IRSN special page (french) ESA special page
corrected and uncorrected records working group ITACA




News Report

Friday 24 April, 06:00 UTC:
According to the Italian officials, 295 died, and 28,000 were left homeless. Between 10,000 and 15,000 buildings were damaged. The epicenter was in L'Aquila (Abruzzo Region), a medieval fortress hill town. Source : ANSA : http://www.ansa.it




Regional seismicity

Last major quakes in Italy: Oct. 31, 2002: 5.9-magnitude temblor that struck the south-central Molise region, killing 28 people, including 27 children who died when their school collapsed. Sep. 26, 1997: 6.4-magnitude quake in Umbria (central Italy) near Assisi, killing 11 people Nov. 23, 1980: 6.5-magnitude earthquake in Eboli, about 80km south of Naples, killing 2,700 people May 6, 1976: 6.5-magnitude in North East Italy (Friuli), killing 1,000 people

Regional seismicity (click to enlarge)

Regional moment tensors (click to enlarge)





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Damages in L'Aquila (Italy) 7 Km from the epicenter. View the 61 pictures

View Pictures of l'Aquila before earthquake (in 2003) on this page.



Intensity map

(generated with the results of the online questionnaire)


(click to enlarge)