The avalanche that hit the Rigopiano hotel on January 18, 2017, causing the death of 29 people, was not triggered by the earthquake that affected Abruzzo that day. This is what was established by the Sixth Section of the civil court of Milan which rejected the indemnity appeal filed against an insurance company by the company that owns the hotel, which invoked, in fact, the causal link between the earthquake and the avalanche in this regard. to a policy relating only to earthquake damage.
On the morning of January 18, in fact, some violent earthquakes of a magnitude greater than 5 affected the Aquila, about forty kilometers as the crow flies from Rigopiano.
Then, at 4.40 pm the same day, an avalanche of enormous proportions engulfed the hotel, causing death and destruction. For a long time, in recent years, there has been discussion of a possible link between seismic tremors and avalanches. Now however – in the first sentence of a court on the tragedy of the Abruzzo resort – it is excluded that there is a causal link, as established by the sixth civil section of the Court of Milan. All while the main trial, the Pescara one, is about to enter the heart, so much so that, according to some rumors, the sentence could arrive by the end of the year.
The Milanese judge Antonio Stefani, in the eight pages of the sentence, as reported by TgR Abruzzo, rejected the indemnity appeal filed against an insurance company by the company that owns the hotel, which invoked the causal link between the earthquake and the avalanche in this regard. to a policy relating only to earthquake damage. The experts appointed by the judge – the seismologist Paolo Gasperini and the snow specialist Massimiliano Barbolini – in their technical advice supported the thesis of natural detachment, excluding that the avalanche was caused by the earthquake.
“We are happy because five years after the Rigopiano tragedy there is a first sentence by a court of the Italian republic. It concerns the causal link between the earthquake and the avalanche, a very important aspect much debated especially in the ongoing criminal trial and at screening of the consultants appointed by the Gup Sarandrea “, says the relatives committee of the victims of Rigopiano.
Regarding the sentence, the relatives of the victims speak of “an outcome that confirms our convictions. The avalanche – concludes the committee – was not triggered by the earthquake. First piece of justice in memory of the victims of Rigopiano five years after the tragedy”.
Source: Ansa
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