I posted the tweet above a couple of minutes after this week’s Italian earthquake. The quake measured 6.3 on the Richter scale and mainly hit L’Aquila, a town roughly 60 miles north of Rome. Little did I know at that time that time that tragically up to 207 people would die.
The quake brought back memories of the last quake I experienced in Newcastle Australia in 1989 – that was a 5.5 quake and 12 people were killed then.
Pretty scary stuff and hugely thankful that I was affected only in the fact that I was woken up. The next day life in Rome was completely normal by my reckoning except for the news in the media.
Plenty of examples already, but it was amazing to experience first hand how quickly and effectively Twitter spread the news of the quake. Minutes after tweeting the above I was receiving replies with links to Reuters detailing news on the scale. Within ten minutes I was being retweeted by people as a live quake Tweeter. The BBC had contacted me within 20 minutes to conduct an interview. Nothing came of the interview. Not necessarily surprising given the fact, my thankfully calm post quake experience went something like this – ‘I emerged onto the streets to hear no sirens and only see a few people calmly standing around before they returned to bed.’
My thoughts go out to the people that have suffered as a result of this quake. Should you be interested you can donate to The Red Cross at this address.
