Last night, or rather, in the early hours of Sunday morning, two earthquakes shook the Ancona and Macerata areas of Italy’s Le Marche region.

Despite scaring many in the area out of their wits, the two tremors do not appear to have caused injuries or damage to buildings. Checks are being carried out to confirm there has been no damage to people or buildings.

To me, that the earthquakes did not cause any major damage came as no great surprise as I have been told by a friend who has a house in Le Marche that many of the buildings in this region of Italy have been properly earthquake proofed.

This is in stark contrast to other regions of Italy where earthquakes of the same magnitude, and sometimes less, do cause structural damage to buildings and can injure and kill people. For example, the recent 5.2 magnitude earthquake in the Fivizzano area of north Tuscany did damage buildings. Earthquakes in Italy have been known to take out communications networks too.

Stop reading, start speaking

Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.

SEE HOW IT WORKS

Here is a map showing where in the Le Marche region of Italy last night’s earthquake occurred:

When, during earthquakes, large chunks of buildings fall off and hit people, people get hurt. This is less likely to happen in Le Marche where local authorities have invested in making buildings safer, as this incident seems to attest.

Earthquakes are very common occurrences in Italy, though few cause any real damage, they are even less likely to cause problems when buildings have been properly earthquake proofed.

By the way, I’m off to Le Marche this summer for a couple of weeks and the seismic activity is not putting me off in the slightest.