Italy Rushes To Build Shelters From Cold Thousands Still Living In Tents After Earthquakes Rock Country

Bitter cold was the most pressing concern Friday for beleaguered earthquake victims living in tent camps in central Italy.

Aftershocks still are rattling the tens of thousands of people left homeless by a spate of quakes that began Sep. 26. Plummeting temperatures are making the race to set up heated shelters all the more urgent.

Temperatures fell to freezing in some areas Thursday night; forecasters said rain and more cold was on the way.

The quakes killed 10 people and caused widespread destruction in the Umbria and Marche regions.

While authorities hope to have prefabricated shelters in place in most areas by the end of the month, there have been problems reaching outlying mountain districts.

American military engineers arrived Friday in Assisi to help set up temporary housing for earthquake victims.

Around 40 personnel from the U.S. Air Force’s 31st Fighter Wing, based at Aviano Air Force Base in northern Italy, will clear and grade land for prefabricated shelters and connect them to electric and sewage lines.

Schools will reopen Saturday for the children of Nocera Umbra thanks to the efforts of local residents and soldiers, who have managed to get the damaged school buildings up and running again. The town was nearly leveled.

In Foligno, teachers are preparing to start the school year in a tent on Monday. The first lesson will be on earthquakes.

It is not unusual for a moderate quake to be followed by weeks, if not months, of aftershocks, some relatively strong, seismologists say. The central Italy activity is no exception.

“It seems typical,” said Paul David a professor of geophysics at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Major earthquakes usually are followed in a few days or weeks by one or two big aftershocks nearly as big as the main quake. Then, a series of smaller and less frequent aftershocks continues for a year or more. “Some places you can see they’re still lit up for years afterward,” David said.

Italian seismologists have registered more than 3,000 aftershocks since Sept. 26. The activity is concentrated in an 18-mile-long band east of Assisi.