Damage to churches in the 2016 central Italy earthquakes

Churches struck by the earthquake sequence of 2016–2017 in Central Italy confirmed their seismic vulnerability, significantly higher than the one of other unreinforced masonry structures. This resulted in a much wider area affected by significant damages to churches, which were characterised by a rich variability of materials, typologies, dimensions and styles. In the area where significant damages were observed for ordinary buildings, most of the churches exhibited total or partial collapses. The time sequence of the main shocks helped in preventing casualties in churches although the collapse of a bell-gable in Accumoli caused victims in a neighbour house during the first event of August 24th, 2016. Damage surveys to churches were carried out on more than 4000 buildings, in a land area of about 30 000 km2 from September 2016 to May 2017. The data collected during the post-earthquake surveys represent a valuable source of information for better understanding the vulnerability of these structures as well as the effectiveness of past retrofitting interventions. Some examples are reported to show both damage progression due to the cumulated effect of repeated shaking and state-of-the-art strategies for short-term countermeasures