ROME — It is a terrifying sensation when your home starts to shake and your furniture starts to shimmy—especially when you don’t consider your address to be in a high-risk seismic zone. But for the last three months, starting on August 24 and ending, oh, at 1:38 am Thursday morning, that’s exactly what has been happening to residents in many areas of Italy, including Rome, where swinging chandeliers and sliding furniture have become all too common.

And even though there is ample evidence of increased seismic activity, including widening cracks in the Roman Colosseum and frightening fractures in some of the capital’s churches and bridges—not to mention the complete or partial destruction of 200 communities in central Italy—the nation has long been in denial. It has focused on repairing destroyed villages on the country’s major fault lines rather than investing in anti-seismic measures that could actually keep buildings standing and save lives.

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