Rumble And Tremble, An Educational Exhibition To Promote Earthquake Awareness In The Apuan Alps UGGp (Italy)

The Apuan Alps, part of the Apennine orogenic system in Italy, are a tectonically active region. Hence, the Geopark area, being bordered by the Garfagnana-Lunigiana sector which is one of the most hazardous seismic zones in the Northern Apennines, is prone to earthquakes occurrence. Moderate to strong earthquakes have historically been recorded, the last damaging event being the Mw 5.1 in June 2013. However, the strongest earthquake occurred on 7th September 1920: it caused more than 200 deaths, the destruction of entire villages and severe damage to buildings and roads all over an area of more than 1,000 square kilometres around the epicentre located west of Piazza al Serchio village (Garfagnana). Based on the historical reports of the damage, the earthquake had an intensity of IX/X degrees MCS (Mercalli-Cancani-Sieberg Scale), consistent to the Richter magnitude of 6.5 as computed on historical seismograms. The Apuan Alps UGGp has always promoted projects and activities aimed to raise the awareness of local communities to improve the resilience and to mitigate risks deriving from natural hazard events. Since the experience and knowledge of what happened in the past is important for planning a safer future, in the centenary anniversary of the 1920 earthquake, the Geopark launched the Project "1920-2020: preserving the memory of a past disaster". Despite the pandemic, an educational webinar and the presentation of a book were organised on the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction 2020 and 2021, with regard to the 1920 earthquake in Garfagnana-Lunigiana. Work on the main initiative, i.e. the educational exhibition entitled "Rumble and Tremble" on the 1920 earthquake, instead, is now in progress. The exhibition is to be inaugurated in 2022 in the Geopark Visitor Center of Equi Terme, which also houses the ApuanGeoLab, the interactive path of local and global Earth Sciences. The exhibition includes the historical images of the disaster which are photos mostly of destroyed buildings, survivors and rescue work. This moving section aims to keep the memory of the enormous disaster alive so that it may become the collective memory of the Geopark community. The core of the "Rumble and Tremble" exhibition is made up of panels dealing with the 1920 seismic event and subsequent phase of rescue and aid within the general framework of the earthquake phenomenon, thus connecting local issues to global geological issues. This scientific section aims to answer questions such as what an earthquake is and why it occurs, where an earthquake is located and how it is measured, how strong it can be, what the relationships between seismic hazard and seismic risk are and how to implement good practices for seismic prevention and risk mitigation. A third sector of the exhibition, to be called the Geoparks Network corner, will focus on the experiences of other UNESCO Global Geoparks in terms of scientific dissemination and education on earthquakes risk mitigation.