Witness to the trials

LSue Hickey

’AQUILA is the medieval capital city in the heart of the Abruzza region of Italy.

The City of Hobart has enjoyed a 20-year sister city relationship with L’Aquila, largely supported by our important Italian community. L’Aquila was devastated by a significant earthquake in 1997 and the people of Hobart sent $60,000 to the international appeal. In recognition of the 20th anniversary, a delegation of aldermen recently visited L’Aquila before proceeding to a study delegation with the University of Tasmania to Frieburg and London to understand how leading university cities work. This visit is one I will never forget.

It’s hard to describe the shock and despair on arrival in the heart of L’Aquila, the Old Town. Buildings that once burst at the seams with life and activity now stand braced and belted to prevent their collapse. It is estimated that more than 3000 buildings were destroyed. The more recent earthquake of 2009 had shaken this once gracious and proud city. So much rectification work has been done since that dreadful night. Some buildings look freshly restored, stunning if not a little glossy, yet they are achingly empty.

A great dilemma exists. The Old Town is almost completely deserted — that is if you ignore the hundreds of workers digging, hammering, painting and moving behind the protective coverings. Men looking like architects or building supervisors move around in quiet discussion.

But where are the children? Where are the families? Where are the businesses that once proudly displayed their wares from the bottom floors of these buildings?

People don’t want to move back into the city heart until there are shops. Shops won’t return until there are people. And while some of the buildings look great from the outside, they may not be complete inside or if they are, they may not be connected to gas, electricity or water.

The council is spending billions of euros trying to rebuild the old town, and needs to have it activated but the restoration looks like it might still be another five years away from completion.

My guide Guiseppe, a council officer, told me of the night the earthquake struck. It was 3.32am, April 6, 2009, and his bed moved violently across the room. There was water all over the floor, he worried for years that it came from the giant fish tank he owned but later believed the water pipes had broken. He was in darkness as the electricity had gone and he was surrounded by rubble.

Giuseppe still hates to walk through the Old Town. His memories haunt him.

He is part of the restoration team and it is his job to help supervise the buildings and builders. He despairs at the cost and delays.

Like most people in the village, Giuseppe could not return to his broken home that night. All his possessions were destroyed or inaccessible. He was to spend the next three months sleeping in his car. Almost 40,000 people were living in tents on every clear sports ground available on the outskirts of the city. Thousands more stayed with friends in undamaged buildings or in railway carriages and some families moved to other cities. More than 65,000 people became homeless that night.

Giuseppe told me that as a member of the government he did not sleep that night but amongst the chaos, havoc and dust found some of his work colleagues and tried to assess the damage. His office was completely destroyed. Over the next few days looters had stolen the computers and he and his team worked very long days in a mostly undamaged kindergarten, working with pencils and paper on little child-sized desks and chairs, making priority lists and sense of the situation. They had to wait for Rome to send them the maps to begin the full assessment.

The army and the state stepped in and took control, taking care of the shaken people and providing tents and food which mostly lasted until September of the same year. By this stage enough temporary housing had been built to give everyone a roof over their heads. Giuseppe then noticed that since the initial early years of struggle and survival, recovering from the 308 deaths, the many more injured, the disruption to daily life for citizens and business, that he noticed a big increase in suicides, domestic unrest and general signs of posttraumatic stress among the city people.

He talked of the problems with corruption in the beginning but stresses that there are now procedures in place which prevent rorting in the rebuilding and the use of illegal workers.

My head is spinning — how did they come to the decision to restore the Old Town and not just build a modern new one? How did they decide on the order of each building to be brought back to life?

I can see the potential beauty but I struggle with the $18 billion euro price tag. So much money to rebuild a town that has suffered more than one earthquake in the town’s history. What if another strikes and all this work is in vain?

I ponder the amount of love for the way the town was and the clear community desire for this work to be done. But how