By Jaideep Sarin, IANS,
L’Aquila (Italy) : Three tremors shook this mountain town Wednesday as top world leaders, including Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who have gathered here for the G8+G5 summit, were briefed on emergency evacuation plans.
Helicopters have been put on standby to move the leaders to Rome, over 100 km away, in case of an emergency.
Three moderate earthquakes measuring between magnitude 2.2 and 2.8 shook the venue in this central Italian city ahead of the arrival of world leaders, DPA news agency quoted local media as saying.
The tremors were felt at 3.35, 8.16 and 9.40 a.m. local time (0740 GMT), with their epicentre located in the nearby Monti Reatini, the online edition of Il Centro daily said. On Friday, July 3, tremors here measuring 4.1 on the Richter scale were felt.
This 13th century town in Abruzzo region, which was hit by a devastating earthquake of 5.8 magnitude on the Richter scale April 6 this year leaving nearly 300 dead, 1,500 injured and about 60,000 homeless, is playing host to leaders of the world’s wealthiest and most industrialised countries for three days from July 8-10.
After having decided to shift the summit from the idyllic island town of La Maddalena off the coast of Sardina to L’Aquila, the Italian government and local authorities have put an emergency evacuation plan in place for the world’s top political leadership in case of another earthquake hitting the venue.
Other hiccups in the run-up to the summit included Chinese President Hu Jintao being forced to return home following intensified ethnic clashes in the northwestern region of Xinjiang that left over 150 people dead. There were reports that an unidentified aircraft had landed at the L’Aquila airport.
Top leaders did not show any signs of anxiety for fresh tremors but will have it in the back of their minds as they sit down to discuss global issues like the economic slowdown, climate change, food and energy security.
US President Barack Obama, for whom it is the first G8 summit, leads the list of top leaders from the world’s most industrialised countries, including Britain, Russia, Germany, France, Canada, Japan and hosts Italy, for the 35th annual meeting of the forum founded in 1975.
Emerging economies like China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa, which form the G5, are interacting as a group and separately with the G8 leaders.
The Guardia di Finanza Non-Commissioned Officers’ School is the venue for an austere G8. The building, which Italy says is earthquake-proof, was given the green signal to host top world leaders at the summit after addressing safety issues regarding earthquakes.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi got the venue shifted here – an unlikely one for an international summit – as a demonstration of global solidarity with the earthquake victims and also to enable the rebuilding of the town of just 70,000 people at top speed and channel in billions of euros in funding.
“There’s no risk,” Berlusconi told a newspaper: “Even if there was a quake, all the guests would be absolutely safe.”