Different damage observed in the villages of Pescara del Tronto and Vezzano after the M6.0 August 24, 2016 Central Italy earthquake and site effects analysis

The authors have surveyed aunty damaged villages located at the epicentre of the ML=6.0 earthquake which occurred on August 24, 2016 in central Italy. Some unexpected anomalies were discovered such as very different levels of damage in Vezzano and Pescara del Trout() villages (Arquata del Trout Ascoli PiCe110 province). 1 he two villages are situated just 1300 meters from each other. Pescara del Pronto suffered very heavy damage with many masonry building collapses and 48 fatalities, while Vezzano suffered only light damage to few buildings. This paper provides a preliminar analysis from an engineering and geophysics perspective. Particularly, rapid visual surveys were carried out in the two villages in order to detect possible significant differences in the vulnerability of their building stocks and site geophysical investigations were performed to detect possible local amplification elects,