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Subscribe NowA 5.8-magnitude earthquake hit northern Italy on May 29, killing over a dozen people and injuring about 300. It came just nine days after the region suffered a 6.0-magnitude quake that was followed by over 800 aftershocks.
The most recent earthquake “was felt across the whole of Italy, with people running into the streets as far away as Milan, Venice, Genoa and Perugia, with shocks also felt in neighbouring Austria,” Sky News reported.
Factories, barns and buildings were reduced to rubble, and thousands of homes were toppled, causing the number of those displaced by both quakes to top 14,000, BBC News stated.
The total economic loss of both disasters is yet to be determined.
“The Coldiretti farm lobby said damage to the agricultural industry, including Parmesan makers whose aging wheels of cheese already suffered in the first quake, had risen to €500 million ($626 million) with the second hit,” The Associated Press reported. “The Modena Chamber of Commerce estimated that the first quake alone had cost businesses €1.5 billion, with no fresh estimates immediately available.”
Scientists predict more earthquakes for the region.
Alessandro Amato of the Italian Geophysics and Volcanology Institute told Sky News, “It looks like a new fault line has broken.”