Earthquakes remain a major risk for many regions across Europe, particularly in complex tectonic settings where impacts can cascade into landslides, infrastructure failures and long-term socio-economic disruption. ARTEMis examines a landmark seismic event to evaluate rapid damage assessment, exposure mapping, alerting procedures and cross-border emergency coordination. This pilot supports the development of more robust and interoperable workflows for seismic preparedness and response.

Earthquake & Earthquake-Induced Landslides — Friuli, Italy (1976) 

The 1976 Friuli earthquake sequence—which included two M6.5 events—affected northeastern Italy as well as Austria, Slovenia and Croatia, causing nearly 1,000 fatalities and widespread destruction of buildings, transport networks, utilities and cultural heritage. The disaster also triggered numerous landslides, further complicating response operations. ARTEMis uses this historically significant, transboundary event to assess how modern monitoring and alerting systems could support rapid damage estimation and early situational awareness.
Advances since 1976—including the SMINO seismic network, GNSS FReDNet, low-cost accelerometers, near real-time damage assessment tools and improved exposure datasets—provide a rich environment for validating impact-based forecasting and cross-border emergency coordination. This pilot helps refine protocols that strengthen seismic readiness across Europe’s earthquake-prone regions.