This Friday, June 16, an earthquake of quite notable violence shook the departments of Charente-Maritime and Deux-Sèvres. It’s time to take stock of the damage.
By HR with AFP
© Jean-Christophe Sounalet / MAXPPP / PHOTOPQR/SUD OUEST/MAXPPP
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VSn Friday June 16, the departments of Charente-Maritime and Deux-Sèvres were shaken by an earthquake with a magnitude between 5.3 and 5.8. In the aftermath of this violent earthquake, it is time to take stock of the damage. Houses were cracked, some churches were damaged and residents were asked to relocate.
Two aftershocks of the earthquake were recorded this Saturday, June 17 (magnitude 5 and 3.7), according to the French Central Seismological Bureau (BCSF), adding to the fear of the inhabitants of the affected sector, some of whom cannot return to their weakened house. In the town of La Laigne (Charente-Maritime), the church tower has major cracks and houses have been deemed “uninhabitable” by firefighters.
The latter inspect the homes and buildings of this village of 500 inhabitants one by one and classify them from green to black according to their condition, noted an AFP journalist. “I don’t know if I have the right to stay in the house,” Guillaume Wacrenier, a resident of La Laigne, told AFP. “Everything is affected: two facades are cracked and I’m not talking about plaster cracks. Stones have fallen, I pass my fingers through some cracks, all my pieces have traces of impact, there are gaps between the partitions. »
Two slightly injured
“My first job today is to put the tiles back in place, because thunderstorms are forecast for this (Saturday) evening. Last (Friday) night my neighbors were packing up and leaving,” he added. Similar damage was observed in the surrounding villages, such as Saint-Hilaire-la-Palud (Deux-Sèvres) where a security perimeter was established around the church, and 38 people had to be relocated to this area, according to the prefecture of Deux-Sèvres.
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Two people were slightly injured in this department and the earthquake “also caused a lot of material damage, such as falling rocks, cracks and a partial roof collapse”, particularly in Niort. Building assessments continue on Saturday, carried out by firefighters specialized in this task who must receive reinforcement from neighboring departments. The prefecture has asked residents to move away from buildings that seem “fragile”.
In the south of Vendée, firefighters carried out a dozen interventions on Saturday after the aftershocks for “minor damage”, such as damaged chimneys. “Given the intensity of the earthquake […]an accelerated natural disaster recognition procedure will be initiated in order to take into account potential structural damage,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Twitter.
An earthquake approximately every 10 years
This earthquake, which occurred at 6:38 p.m. in the town of Cram-Chaban (Charente-Maritime), halfway between La Rochelle and Niort, is the most important in this region of western France. France for fifty years and an earthquake recorded in Oléron in 1972. Earthquakes with a magnitude equal to or greater than 5, like the one recorded on Friday evening, are rare in France, according to specialists, even if the last dates back to November 2019 in Drôme-Ardèche.
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“On average, there is one every 10 years in metropolitan France”, according to Jérôme Vergne, seismologist at the Earth and Environment Institute in Strasbourg. The tremor was felt in a large part of the west of the country, from Rennes to Bordeaux and as far as Limoges, generating numerous calls to the emergency services and testimonies on social networks.