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Italy Is Shaken By Quakes

"Do you feel it?" asked Antonio Antonini, 48, as he stood with his newly homeless neighbors in tiny Sellano, Italy. "The earth is vibrating."

The earth in central Italy has been vibrating for weeks now. Two big earthquakes hit late last month, killing 10 people and destroying artworks and beautiful churches that had stood up to the elements for centuries. Since then, four major aftershocks (smaller shake-ups after big earthquakes) and more than 3,000 lesser rumblings have rocked the region.

Scientists cannot predict when Italy will settle down. An earthquake puts stress on nearby weak places in the earth, called faults. New pressure on a fault causes the earth there to shift a bit more. "It's a region with a large quantity of faults," says Francesco Ponziani of the earthquake observatory in Perugia.

But people in central Italy are at their wits' end. "Above all, we don't sleep," said Fiorella Tardioli, 37, of Assisi. "If I hear a noise, I jump immediately."

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