The city will
be destroyed at dawn (La città verrà distrutta all’alba) was
the Italian title used for George A. Romero’s film The Crazies, which
was scheduled to be shown at the cinema in Buja on the evening of May 6 1976.
Fifty years later, the same title continues to echo as a sinister omen. That
evening, the ground shook for 59 interminable seconds, spreading death and
destruction among the inhabitants of the small town behind Udine. Those who had
not been trapped beneath the rubble fled their homes into streets and squares
that had not been invaded by debris. In the darkness, people began to dig, and
they considered taking the first injured people to the hospital. However, the
roads were torn apart and covered with stones and debris from the collapses,
making them completely impassable, as was the railway network. Telephone lines
also stopped working, and only the voices of radio amateurs responded to the
cry of pain that silenced the region. Notably, the group from Buja managed to
alert Italy by broadcasting a brief request for help: «Everything here has been
destroyed». A similar message also came from the switchboard operator at the
Buja Carabinieri barracks: «There are dead, very many dead, send help».
The echo of
the roar that preceded the earthquake, along with the people's screams of fear,
was recorded on an audio cassette. On the evening of May 6, Mario Garlatti, a
sixth-form student in Udine at the time, was transferring the Pink Floyd album Wish
You Were Here to the cassette, unaware that he would shortly afterwards
record the sound of the Orcolat. This ancient monster had awoken,
causing a Mw 6.42 shock with an epicentre in the Monteprato area, between
Taipana and Lusevera in the Julian Prealps. The seismic activity was felt
throughout northern Italy. The upper Friulian plain north of Udine was hit, as
were the communities located along the slopes of the Carnic and Julian Prealps.
Forty-five Municipalities would later be defined as “disaster-stricken”,
including the main ones of Gemona, Artegna, Venzone, Buja, Pinzano al
Tagliamento and Osoppo; forty as “severely damaged”; and fifty-two as
“damaged”. All of these were located between Udine and Pordenone, plus three
Municipalities in the Province of Gorizia.
At dawn the
following day, people everywhere rolled up their sleeves to search for the
missing, helped by the first rescuers and volunteers. The task was made more
difficult by the constant danger of building collapses. The search for
survivors lasted for days. In Trasaghis, Guido Vergani, a journalist from the
newspaper «Corriere della Sera»,
spoke to a distraught woman sitting on the steps of the war memorial: «My
son-in-law is up there, working to pull out his two children, Caterina, four
years old, and Luca, eight months old. They pulled my daughter Anna out this
morning, already dead». The story of little Paolo Fabris, the son of a
pharmacist, reached the heart of national public opinion. In Osoppo, he
remained buried under his house for 21 consecutive hours before being brought
to safety. The toll of victims was immediately extremely heavy. The first
figures indicated 977 dead (here
the nominal list of the victims), including, according to a provisional
estimate, at least 150 children. In relation to the number of residents, the
highest percentage of deaths was recorded in the Municipality of Montenars,
while the town of Gemona held the grim record in absolute numbers, with more
than 400 dead. The number of injured stood at 2,607.
The number of
damaged houses was frightening. No one could have imagined that around 18,000
buildings would collapse and a further 75,000 would be damaged. This
highlighted the fact that the area was still dominated by small-scale
agricultural ownership and outdated housing. Almost all historic centres were
damaged, with many monuments destroyed, including the Cathedral of Sant’Andrea
Apostolo in Venzone, the Castle of Colloredo di Monte Albano and the Cathedral
of Santa Maria Assunta in Gemona del Friuli. In a special issue dated May 8,
the daily newspaper «Messaggero Veneto»
dramatically described the latter as «a
skeleton over a city full of dead and ruins». After spending the night in
Magnano in Riviera helping the injured, this is how Forestry Inspector Aldo
Barbina described the scene that appeared before his eyes as he drove back
towards Udine: «Destroyed castles, smashed houses, farmhouses reduced to
rubble, reinforced concrete structures still standing but bent to one side, an
apartment block intact but with all the ground-floor pillars leaning, factories
shattered, houses apparently sound but missing a storey». Nor did industrial
plants withstand the impact. On top of losing their homes and perhaps even
family members, many people also found themselves suddenly unemployed.
There were too
many bodies, and the cemeteries were too small. This meant that mass graves had
to be created in several towns to bury the victims. In the absence of family
members and neighbours, it fell to the parish priest to identify the bodies, to
prevent the municipal administrations from labelling all the dead as “unknown”
in their haste to provide burials and avoid the spread of possible epidemics.
In Osoppo, parish priest Don Dino Pezzetta was confronted with the sight of two
young sisters, Genni (aged one) and Sonia (aged three), embracing each other
lifelessly. When asked by a journalist from the British news agency Reuters,
who put the question to him, «Are you a priest? Do you believe in God?», the
priest replied laconically, «I do not know». The first funeral to be celebrated
in the cemetery of Majano, a few days after the earthquake, was extremely
moving. A line of coffins was set up in the cemetery while the crowd, holding
back tears, listened to the homily and message of hope delivered by Don Giuseppe
Ribis: «We will rebuild everything. We will do it for our families, for our
Friuli, for the whole world».
Vittorino
Meloni, the editor of «Messaggero
Veneto», was eloquent in his criticism of the flood of photojournalists
who had arrived in the damaged towns. Just a few hours after the disaster
struck, he praised the resilience of the Friulans, saying: «The photographers
from major Italian and international magazines are astonished not to find
pathos here. They are disappointed not to find scenes of people fainting. In
other words, they cannot continue their series of tear-jerking stories. They
can hardly believe it; they cling to psychological explanations and promise
themselves that they will be luckier today or tomorrow in their futile search.
This is yet more proof that they do not know Friuli or its people. Ultimately,
they will see it, learn it and understand what Friuli is and how it reacts».
The great
writer Gianni Rodari, special correspondent for the daily newspaper «Paese Sera», recalled the speed with
which people tried to get back on their feet in an article titled Dramatic
race against time to save those buried alive, published on May 9: «You no
longer see anyone crying on the second day after the earthquake. The end of
what existed is something that already belongs to a distant time. Something
else has begun; it is not yet known what it will be».
In this tragic
situation, politicians were quick to show their support. On May 7, the
President of the Republic, Giovanni Leone, visited the affected towns together
with the Minister of the Interior, Francesco Cossiga, and the Minister of
Labour, Mario Toros. The President of the Council of Ministers, Aldo Moro,
arrived the following day. Shortly after landing by helicopter in Osoppo on 7
May, a worker with bloodstained hands and rubble-covered clothes approached the
Head of State. Addressing the President firmly, he exclaimed: «Do you see those
destroyed houses? They must rise again. But not only the houses, that plant
over there must also be reborn. It is the factory that gave us work». In the
days that followed, the Vice President of the United States, Nelson
Rockefeller, also arrived in the Region, a visit that was widely praised by the
press: From across the ocean comes a sign of esteem and solidarity.
Rockefeller: America embraces Friuli», read the front-page headline of «Messaggero Veneto» on May 14.
In response to
the earthquake in May, which left 40,000 people displaced and homeless, a plan
was devised to establish temporary settlements (“tent camps”). However, it soon
became clear that the recovery process would take longer than initially
anticipated, even for the installation of the prefabricated units. By the end
of August, as autumn approached, hardship was clearly increasing, and protests
and popular demonstrations were becoming more frequent. The situation escalated
when the ground began to shake yet again. After two violent tremors were
recorded on Saturday 11 September (max Mw 5.58), the same area was devastated
on the morning of Wednesday 15 September, by two further extremely powerful
tremors (max Mw 6.02).
The front page
of «Il Gazzettino» reported: A
new and frightening earthquake strikes. Terror in Friuli. People are fleeing.
Meanwhile, «Messaggero Veneto»
ran the headline: Infernal day for Friuli, comparing the damage and
intensity of the shocks on September 15 to those on the night of May 6. In
Municipalities that had already been affected, buildings that had miraculously
remained standing on the evening of May 6 finally collapsed, leaving expanses
of rubble in their wake. Men, women, young and old were powerless in the face
of such a calamity and fell back into despair. Many of the houses that had been
repaired within three months collapsed or were severely damaged, taking with
them every hope of rebirth. At 11:21 a.m. on Wednesday September 15, journalist
Gianpaolo Carbonetto witnessed the already precarious walls of the cathedral
falling to the ground while he was stopped in a queue on the outskirts of
Venzone. Four months of endurance and effort seemed to be wiped out in a matter
of seconds. In Gemona, people who, until a few days earlier, had been working
tirelessly to repair the house built through years of sacrifice, found
themselves on the gravel forecourt of the town hall, suitcases in hand, waiting
to board the bus taking the newly displaced to the empty hotels along the
coast. «Courage, we will see each other again soon!» was the wish of Mayor
Ivano Benvenuti to his people, forced to abandon the town in which they had
been born and raised.