Earthquake of magnitude 4.4, fear returns to Campi Flegrei. Musumeci: state of emergency

First a loud bang, then the floor seemed to be about to explode. Fear has returned to Campi Flegrei, with a magnitude 4.4 shock that at 12:07 once again stopped everyone's life. Because if it is true that the earth in those areas almost never stops shaking, it is equally true that people, even today that the damage has been contained, almost never stop being afraid of dying. The government will declare a state of national emergency for the area, informed the Minister for Civil Protection and Maritime Policies Nello Musumeci.

Matteo and Rita, he is 86 and she is 84, have lived in Pozzuoli for over 50 years. They know bradyseism well, very well in fact. "We have to live with it, what else can we do? We don't even run away anymore," they say. When the chandelier swayed this morning, glasses fell and that dull noise that heralds the worst was heard everywhere, Matteo and Rita were plunged back into terror and with them thousands of citizens. Some took to the streets, some ran to the Lungomare, some rushed to the children's school where lessons were in progress and which, along with the universities, were evacuated. It was chaos, especially because of the traffic. A chaos, as the mayor of Pozzuoli, Luigi Manzoni, himself underlined, which "occurred because there is always little awareness of how to behave, I understand the anxiety of a parent who wants to go and pick up their children from school even if they then act in a way that is not in line with the emergency plan".

The organizational machine worked. "The first checks carried out by both the firefighters and the Metropolitan City on schools and public facilities are giving a fairly reassuring result", says the prefect of Naples, Michele di Bari, on the sidelines of the work of the Rescue Coordination Center that was immediately convened after the earthquake. "We haven't had much damage - he continued - there is a ridge on which checks are underway and a ruin that has been destroyed but for the rest a lot of fear and no particular event". At the moment twenty interventions by the firefighters have been requested, a number that could increase during the evening. And it is no coincidence that the prefect has assured that the Rescue Coordination Center will be convened permanently to guarantee all the support to the population. The strong 4.4 shock was clearly felt also in Naples but also in this case no damage and tomorrow the schools will also be regularly open. In the meantime the seismic swarm does not stop. The tremors of magnitude greater than 1 began at 12:07 and since then, underlines the director of the Volcanoes department of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Francesca Bianco, about twenty have been recorded. The former NATO headquarters in Bagnoli has been reopened as a reception center and another center in via Terracina. And then several waiting areas, seven in Pozzuoli alone.

Mayor Manzoni doesn't mince his words on one thing: "The phenomenon of bradyseism will never go away. We must learn to live with this reality". And he warns: "We will never set up tents under houses like in the 1980s. Citizens must understand how to live with bradyseism. Anyone who would like a tent under their house must understand that this is not part of our plans for bradyseism, I have already said it several times and I will repeat it". But, in the meantime, a storm arrives in Pozzuoli and people prefer the pouring rain in the streets to the fear of returning home. And the elderly are angry, they say they feel abandoned and ask for areas with camp beds to be set up "because we don't have a car and we can't move". Meanwhile, checks carried out by Anas on various state roads have not reported any anomalies or structural damage. Rail traffic on the Rome-Naples high-speed line, which had been suspended, has returned to normal, as has the subway line between Pozzuoli and Gianturco. There is, however, one thing that will remain suspended in Pozzuoli, the lives of the people. Because if it is true that for now the damage toll is contained, the fear of those who live in that contained land will never be. In the afternoon, Musumeci chaired a summit with the head of the Civil Protection department Fabio Ciciliano and the head of the prevention and reconstruction department of Casa Italia Luigi Ferrara. With the state of emergency, the minister informed, it would ensure "the speeding up of the procedures already in place, defined by the various regulations passed by the Meloni government in the last year and a half in relation to the seismic risk in the Campi Flegrei, connected to bradyseism. I will therefore ask the president of the Campania Region for the necessary agreement, before bringing the proposed resolution to the examination of the Council of Ministers".