The Norcia earthquake ten years later: the story of those who helped the population

On 30 October 2016 the Valnerina trembled again, just a few days after the tremors of 26 October. The affected municipalities are on the border between Umbria and Marche. Among the main ones are Norcia, Preci and Castelsantangelo sul Nera. The swarm registers a magnitude of 6.5: buildings collapse, but not people. The earthquake of 30 October, like that of 26 October, caused neither deaths nor injuries.

The emergency triggers the intervention of the police and a whole series of voluntary organisations. Among these is Anpas - National Association of Public Assistance -, one of the main Italian groups active in the field of Civil Protection, healthcare and social welfare services.

On the day of the earthquake, Anpas was already present in the area: on 27 October, after the first tremors, it set up a canteen camp inside a gym outside the walls of Norcia. With the swarm on October 30, the situation worsened and requests for meals increased.

«In a hundred days of activity, we distributed almost 50 thousand meals; not only for the population, but also for a large part of the workforce active in the area", recalls the Anpas national protection manager, Alessandro Benini. For the emergency, around 580 volunteers arrived from all over Italy, with an average coverage of 30 volunteers per week. And this is one of the aspects that touched Benini the most, the work done together with the volunteers. «We have always put all of ourselves into solving problems, there has never been a situation in which someone threw in the towel. The volunteers slept in tents, even at minus 12 degrees. And if in the morning the gas or water didn't come out of the taps due to the cold, we sat down there and fixed it. On several occasions I was almost moved."

Alongside the solidarity among the volunteers, there was, obviously, the population affected by the earthquake, who reacted in a varied way. If many were lucky enough to be able to continue working, a factor that contributed to giving a sense of normality, it was the elderly who suffered most from the situation, who in fact often frequented the canteen - as Benini recalls -. «The canteen also wanted to be a key place to meet. I believe that continuing to create a community, where the physical place is missing, is an essential condition for overcoming the emergency: the reconstruction of buildings loses value if the community has disintegrated".