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Wednesday, April 15th 2009, Fabrizio G. Scalabrino

EARTHQUAKE: The unpredictable monster

03.32. It was a ghastly experience. The noise was that of a growling, roaring, angry beast running through the house at 03.32 that Monday morning. It was 6 April, the week before Easter. The earthquake had hit the least-known region of Italy: Abruzzo.



Inhuman noise. We will never forget that terrifying, inhuman noise as it rushed from room to room. The walls were cracking, plaster and objects falling. It took a second to realize what was happening and a second later it was pitch dark as the electricity went off. The growling voice continued for 20 long seconds. When the lights returned we looked out of the window and saw the 15th-century church of the Madonna del Rosario, the Piccolomini castle and an ancient tower opposite our house still standing. We wondered how long it would be before they fell.



L’Aquila. We were in the small town of Capestrano, located about 40 km from L’Aquila. We were the lucky ones. Our house, dated 1400, was still standing after it had grated along the rock on which it had been constructed so many years before.

Our experience is nothing compared with what happened in L’Aquila, which had already been destroyed by earthquakes in 1300 and again in 1703. In April 2009 it is reported that 294 died, of whom 20 children and a large number of young university students. I spoke to a member of a team that was helping to extract victims and survivors. He said he would never forget the expression of terror on the faces of the dead.

150 people were pulled out alive from the dust and ruins; 1,500 were wounded; over 40,000 were made homeless, of whom 30,000 are housed in tents and 10,000 have been moved to temporary accommodation along the nearby Adriatic coast. The earthquake damaged over 130 small villages and towns. As of 15 April there are 106 tent camps and others are being set up.

A girl was born in an ambulance very soon after the earthquake and named Gabriella. Life continued immediately after death.



Mothers. Many more children would have died had their mothers not protected them with their bodies and died instead.



The Macedonian immigrants. It was a pleasant sunny Palm Sunday and we were working in the garden after what had seemed a long winter. A few days before I had met Jimmy and his brother, who were builders. They had come across the Adriatic from Macedonia to work in Abruzzo alongside other immigrants, many of whom were now doing the work of the 40 per cent of Abruzzese who emigrated to north and south America after the war. They did the work of shepherds, bricklayers and all the other manual jobs that Italians were so good at.

Jimmy and his brother worked in our garden on the Saturday and Sunday. We were finally building a spill tank around our fuel tank – a legal requirement in case of earthquakes.

Jimmy met Juma from Mombasa, Kenya, who does domestic work for us. Juma said he was Obama’s brother as Obama also had Kenyan roots. Jimmy immediately wanted a photograph with Juma to send back to his family in Macedonia to show he had met Obama’s brother. While working in the garden I joked with Jimmy that Fiammetta, my wife, was making us work on a Sunday. He replied: “We are here in Italy to work and send back funds to our families.”



“A domani”. Late afternoon they said “A domani” – “See you tomorrow”. They still had to help fill a flowerbed they had built. Off they went, leaving their tools in order to finish their work the following day.



They had a surname. It was Monday morning after the earthquake and they did not turn up. I was surprised. Why did they not call? After the earthquake people were confused. I presumed they had taken the day off. I called Jimmy on his mobile, which kept ringing but no-one replied. Late afternoon a woman walked up to me and said bluntly: “Do you know that the men who were working for you yesterday died?” I was dumbfounded. During the earthquake their house, in nearby Castelnuovo, collapsed on them. It was difficult to accept… they did not make it.

Now that they were dead, I got to know their real names: Rifik and Demal Hasani. At the state funeral in L’Aquila Imam Mohamed Nour Dachan spoke on behalf of the six Muslim victims of the earthquake and was applauded by the 5,000 people present. It was the first time that an imam had taken part in a state funeral in Italy.



Only a week has gone by. It seems we have been living with tremors for weeks. They say there have been over 1,000 since the main earthquake but we have only felt a few. Each tremor has been terrifying as nature makes one impotent in mind and movement. Now they say the beast has moved deeper into the ground. Our three hunting dogs, Chiga, Zula and Shaka, sleep in our room as they are the first to warn us a few seconds before another quake is on its way.



Email. We sleep dressed, with a whistle around our necks. Good advice a friend of ours forwarded via email. What a blessing was email, as we were able to contact our daughters in Dublin and Genoa a few minutes after the quake to tell them we were still standing. We received over 90 emails from friends around the world and, even if the house trembled, I kept on replying. It was a good feeling that all those friends were close to Abruzzo with their thoughts and prayers.



People are scared. There is now a tent camp and a camp kitchen set up near the old cemetery walls of Capestrano and most people are sleeping in cars, buses and trucks turned into bedrooms. For the time being they are terrified to return to their homes.



“Io non crollo”. Students hope to continue their studies soon. In L’Aquila, which was/is a university town, students were seen wearing a T-shirt reading “Io non crollo” – “I will not fall down”.



An old Abruzzese woman said: “An earthquake is an unpredictable monster”. She was so right. We heard the monster in that dark terrifying early morning and pray it will not return, ever.

Tent camp in Capestrano. Photo by Fabrizio Scalabrino.

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