2002 Molise earthquake
Date	October 31, 2002
Magnitude	5.9 Mw
Countries affected	Italy
Casualties	28 killed

The 2002 Molise earthquake was a magnitude 5.9 quake that hit the Italian regions of Molise and Puglia on October 31, 2002 at 10:32:58 (UTC). The quake's depth was 10.0 km (6.2 miles). This Manual of Style has the simple purpose of making things easy to read by following a consistent format — it is a style guide. ... October 31 is the 304th day of the year (305th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 61 days remaining. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... The moment magnitude scale was introduced in 1979 by Tom Hanks and Hiroo Kanamori as a successor to the Richter scale and is used by seismologists to compare the energy released by earthquakes. ... Molise is a region of central Italy, the second smallest of the regions. ... Apulia is a region of Italy (called Puglia in Italian), bordering on Molise to the north-west, Campania to the south-west, Basilicata to the south, the Adriatic Sea to the east and the Ionian Sea to the south-east. ... October 31 is the 304th day of the year (305th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 61 days remaining. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ...

The most dramatic effect was the collapse of a school in the town of San Giuliano di Puglia, in which 26 of the 51 pupils lost their lives, together with one of their teachers. In particular, none of the 9 boys of the 4th class (born in 1996) survived. Primary or elementary education consist of the first years of formal, structured education that occurs during childhood. ... San Giuliano di Puglia is a small town in the province of Campobasso, in the region of Molise, in Italy. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ...

The quake was the first seismic event on this site, and the town was not included in any seismic map for preventive protection purposes. An elderly person also perished.

Tectonic Setting

Preliminary moment-tensor solutions for this earthquake imply that the shock occurred as the result of movement on a strike-slip fault. The fault would be either a north-south, left-lateral fault or an east-west, right-lateral fault. Some geologists have hypothesized that a major component of the relative motion between the African plate and Eurasian plate is accommodated on a north-south, left-lateral, boundary that passes near the epicenter of the earthquake. The boundary is thought to accommodate slip of 5 - 10 mm/ year. The preliminary focal-mechanisms are consistent with this model. It is noteworthy, however, that many destructive earthquakes in Italy occur as the result of deformation of the earth's crust that is not related in a simple way to the present-day movements of the African and Eurasian plates. Until detailed studies of this earthquake are completed, hypotheses on the earthquake's relationship to large-scale plate-tectonic processes are speculative. There are various types of faults: In document ISO/CD 10303-226, a fault is defined as an abnormal condition or defect at the component, equipment, or sub-system level which may lead to a failure. ...

Source

• http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/eqinthenews/2002/uskyar/