The aid were prompt and effective after the earthquake: bravo to our government

Just half an hour after the first and most powerful quake, the Vigili del Fuoco (Firefighters) were already on the spot in L’Aquila. From then on, both the Italian government and the citizens started to work together for the people of Abruzzo.

What the Italian firefighters saw was an apocalyptic scenario of collapsed building and shouting, desperate, people. After that, they started to discover dead bodies and it got even worse. In fact, the 6.3-magnitude earthquake that struck L’Aquila and its surroundings and on April 6^th, not only killed 294 (and the death toll is still un complete) people, it also left roughly 60.000 citizen without a home. And it damaged some historical buildings too.

Aids are coming from every single Italian region in form of private donations, blood or food.  Also, the government is doing a lot.  The Interior Minister – Roberto Maroni – has just announced a 12 million euro (almost 16 million $) package for reconstruction works. “We’ll need to re-build both the bell tower and the churches like they were before the heartquake”, said Maroni yesterday night at the “Ballarò” talk show.

“The first step of this emergency has been done and almost 58.000 displaced people have been helped and hosted: 33.900 were hosted in the 5000 tents set up by the Civil Protection Department. Now the second and most difficult step – the check-up of the buildings – will start”, added the Italian Interior Minister. The others were received by several hotels on the Abruzzo’s coastline.  

In other words, what they call “the aid mechanism” has worked fast and very well. Thanks to the organized struggles of the firefighters, the civil protection, the army and the Carabinieri, the victims of this natural disaster are now safe. 

To mention only a few of the efforts and the actual commitment – in terms of vehicles and volunteers – that have been send to the “abruzzesi” (inhabitants of the Abruzzo), there were almost 40 ambulances on the spot, during the days after the first quake. They helped cure the approximately 1.500 wounded people. Something like 12.000 volunteers have been working on the field and, according to Antonio Gambardella  – Commander General of the Vigili del Fuoco – “there are 65 squadrons on the spot, which means 2.700 men and 1200 vehicles”. “The aid was pretty prompt, we like to do facts”, he added. There are also psychologists assisting people in the camps, right now. According to one of them, speaking in condition of anonymity, “it is much easier to work with kids since they’re so flexible-minded. On the contrary it is harder to work with adults and  older people, since they’ve lost a lot in this quake and they don’t have much time ahead”.

The Italian Red Cross (Cri) is very active on the field, with more than 3.000 volunteers and many first aid camps, there are also veterinarians on the spot right now. To put it straight: both governmental and private aids, not to mention the Catholic church, are on site, trying to do their best in order to help the Abruzzesi with their drama. Nonetheless, media outlets around the globe were full of comments  about the alleged “inability” of the Italian government to prevent the earthquake –deal with it – and do something in advance. The case of Giampaolo Giuliani, the geologist who has announced (before the quake) that the concentration of Radon gas was very high in Abruzzo and therefore the government should have done something beforehand,  is symbolic.

The average Joe now thinks that Berlusconi and his Ministers are in some way responsible for the tragedy, even though several different scientists have claimed that it is impossible to prevent a quake with sufficient precision, so to work in advance. Robert Holdsworth of the University of Durham (Uk) – for example – told us that “my understanding is that he [Giampaolo Giuliani] got both the time and the location incorrect. You cannot predict earthquakes with any great certainty in terms of precise location and time and because of the disruption it can cause – and the ‘crying wolf’ problem – it is inadvisable to do so”.

 The other talk of the town started when our Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi joked (as he usually does) about the people in Abruzzo during a press conference in Germany, last week. In this case it was mostly foreign newspapers like the Times online who reported the alleged gaffe: “Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, appears to have made a serious verbal gaffe after telling a German TV station that the 17,000 people left homeless by the Abruzzo earthquake should consider themselves to be on a "camping weekend".

 The fact that this time (unlike at the G20 with Queen Elizabeth and Obama), Berlusconi’s words were portrayed as a “gaffe” almost exclusively by foreign media outlets says a lot: knowing what the government has done here in Italy for the people of Abruzzo, it would be difficult for an Italian newspaper to take advantage of our Prime Minister’s joke.

 In fact, only a few foreign newspapers noticed what Berlusconi said during another press conference: “We don’t want make the same mistakes again. Once the emergency will end, we will get the people out of the tents e we will have to make sure that they’ll benefit from normal livable conditions. After that , we will start again from the reconstruction [of the damaged towns], leaving each construction site under the provinces’ responsibilities”.

 Admitting that the one in Germany was a gaffe as they said, the actual commitment with which the Italian government, has helped out the Abruzzesi, is not a joke neither a “summer camp”.