30 years later

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Thirty years later
A photographic document of a catastrophic earthquake

On November23 rd, 1980, at 7.30 PM, in Southern Italy, the earth trembled, and90 seconds later a part of Italyof 6,600 sq. mi. (1.3 times the surface of Connecticut) was almost completely washedaway from any map.

Irpinia is the name commonly used for the province of Avellino,a town of almost 60,000 inCampania, about 50 Km away from Naples, and 40 Km from the Amalfi Coast. Irpinia was thearea most severely hit by the earthquake, and for all the press infoing aboutthe tragedy it started to be called Irpinia’searthquake. Its total bill was 3,000 deaths, 280,000 homeless, almost 9,000injured. Roads, railways, water pipes, electric pipes: the majority of thearea’s infrastructures were destroyed or damaged.

Those weredays of grief, fear and freeze: together with the earthquake came the winterand that wasn’t pleasant for the homeless who were hosted in tents.

It was darkwhen the earthquake hit, and only the day after the light made it possible tounderstand how big the destruction was, but the area was so vast and partiallyremote that it took three days to have a complete idea of the dimensions of thetragedy.

On November23 rd, 1980 I was also homeless. The building that hosted the flatwhere I used to live was still standing, but damaged. The flat was at the sixthand top floor of that tall and narrow building. Authorities told us we were notauthorized to live there. But we had the chance to go up just once in order to collectwarm clothes, blankets and our valuables. I forgot the blankets but took myPentax and all my B&W Ilford FP4 film rolls..

Thefollowing days were spent mainly searching for survivors or corpses. I had mycamera with me and used it every time I could.

When heheard the news about the earthquake, Charles Stählin, a Swiss engineer, loadedhis car with his newly built gear and, together with his daughter, left the village of Oberengstringenand drove straight to Avellino.

His invention was a sound receiver andamplifier that could be placed between the debris with the aim of hearingsighs, cries, or any noise that could evidence the presence of survivors.

Today,thirty years later, it’s a very common gear among the rescue teams, but atthose times it was something new and rare. Those were the times when theresearches were held mainly with dogs and removing carefully the debris.

Mr Stählinwas slightly lame in one leg, but perfectly able to take care of himself andthe daughter; he had no hint about Italian that’s why he needed an interpreter.At the crisis unit headquarter, somebody choose a guy who studied German at thecollege. It was me.

Just thetime to introduce ourselves and we were already driving in direction of themost severely hit area: in Lioni the roads were cracked, the railway station’sbuilding collapsed, the rails were crowded with rail trucks used to host thehomeless. The Town Hall was also destroyed.
In Bisacciagreat amount of the old buildings were destroyed but also the modern hospitalcollapsed in a vertical shift: the collapsed floors were piled up and amongthem were the beds, crushed by the debris. The rescuers had to work with the oxyhydrogen flame to create a path andreach the corpses. The smell all around was unbearable.
InCalabritto the coffins were piled up at the edge of the road, ready to be filled.
Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi was almost completely destroyed and an emergency hospital hadbeen installed in the football stadium.
But we sawthe real, absolute destruction once we arrived in Conza della Campania: therewere only rocks and stones where once stood buildings and houses. No singlebuilding was still intact. The church collapsed when it was full of people (itwas a Sunday when the earthquake hit) and many faithful were killed. Only thewater tank still stood exactly on the top of the hill where once the town was, incongruous,overlooking a landscape of rubble and death.

Franklyspeaking, I didn’t have many chances to be helpful with my language skills. Myknowledge of the German was useful to talk with Mr. Stählin, his daughter andthe German soldiers who came to rescue with trucks, field hospitals, doctorsand helicopters. But my presence on the field was important because Mr. Stählinneeded somebody to help him in placing his microphone in the right spots, andthis means under the debris of a collapsed building, between the stones thatfilled up a cellar and things like that. That was basically my duty. But I also aimed forshooting photographs.

We livedthat life for more than one week and finally came back to Avellino. Mr. Stählin’s help made iy possibleto rescue a dozen of people. For this reason, years later, he was granted with anhonorary title.

Of thosetragic days I’ve kept several hundreds black and white prints, processed inhard conditions, developed and printed with such gears as I could find, storedcarefully and finally scanned to grant them a longer life. What I show here isa selection of them. There is no artistic aim in these pictures; they are justa document of a tragic piece of history of Italy,a symbol of respect of the memory of the thousands of victims of that terribleday and a symbol of closeness with all other persons who – in Italy and in the whole world – haveexperienced the same terrible feelings.

Conza della Campania, almost completely destroyed by the earthquake. Only the water tank still stood on the top of the hill where once the town was; incongruous, overlooking a landscape of rubble and death.