Earthquake aftermath – New housing for Aquila

By Naomi Conrad

The Italian Civil Protection Agency has set up a dark green tent on the main roundabout in the European quarter, sandwiched between and dwarfed by the towering glass buildings of the European Commission and European Council, in front of which a group of protestors are demonstrating against the European Union’s asylum policies. In the late afternoon of Brussels’ wintery-cold, grey afternoon, the rush-hour traffic glides past the squat tent, a little incongruous in its office building surroundings.

It takes a spirited rush across the road and faith in the zebra crossing to get to the tent. Inside engineers working for the Civil Protection Agency have set up an earthquake simulator: A big platform on a hydraulic base, onto which we, a group of somewhat apprehensive tourists and Commission interns, are ushered. We are then handed yellow helmets and told to hold onto the equally bright yellow handrails. “You are now going to experience an earthquake of the magnitude of that which shook L’Aquila”, we are informed, rather ominously, by a female engineer. The platform begins to shake and tremble, “this is what it would feel like to be on the streets”, only presumably without the safety precautions of handrails and helmets. The second simulation is far stronger, “imagine you are on the fifth floor of a normally built building”. The platform sways, information pamphlets fall from some shelves on the wall, we stumble, clutch to the railings.

The shaking platform makes it easier to imagine buildings collapsing into rubble and dust: Over 300 people were killed in the 6.3 magnitude earthquake which shook the Italian town in April for almost 40 seconds and destroyed vast swathes of the city. Aquila was formerly Italy’s Bath; its grand 18th century buildings built after yet another devastating earthquake hit the town in 1703.

Officials have been busily securing and restoring roughly 1,200 buildings and pulling down countless others: A quarter of all privately owned buildings were found to be totally uninhabitable, another fifteen percent required extensive repair. Publicly owned buildings, many of them churches, museums and other cultural heritage sites, were more severely damaged: 54 percent are beyond repair, including 70 schools.

In April, amidst the rubble of their town and churches, more than 60.000 people suddenly found themselves without homes. With their houses partially or entirely collapsed, thousands were moved into hotels in the region, even army barracks, others had to find refuge with family and friends. For those even less fortunate blue tents were set up: 6.000 tents in 171 tent cities, on football grounds and other open spaces, housed Aquila’s population for months, refugees in their own derelict city as winter approached.

It was to this tent and rubble landscape that Prime Minister Berlusconi decided to bring the leaders of the world’s most powerful leaders. For many it was an audacious public relations move that certainly did not go uncriticised and came at a time when Berlusconi was once again embroiled in internal scandals: July’s G8 leaders were brought to Aquila and toured round the ruined, crumbling city, wearing yellow helmets, the same helmets with the G8 logo that we were given to wear in the earthquake simulator, their solemn photos were taken in front of a semi-collapsed church. Many pledged money and funds for the town, as did the Italian government. While L’Aquila received the world’s media attention, more remote and isolated villages complained that they were left out of the lime-light and rebuilding efforts.

For once, the government has kept its promises, after all Berlusconi stakes much of his government’s image on the rebuilding efforts: In a few months, the national government built 185 seismitically isolated buildings: ‘seismic platforms’, which are connected via moving disks, “sliding pendulums” according to the engineers, to pillars, which absorb the shocks of earthquakes. The houses built on top of the platforms, and not connected to the pillars, can then be made of any material and can be several stories high and will resist earthquakes of an even higher magnitude than that of L’Aquila. The engineers proudly claim their new houses are environmentally sustainable, carbon-efficient and well isolated.

The third simulation of an earthquake on the fifth floor of one of these earthquake proof houses is indeed less rough. “No need to hold on to the rails”, the engineer claims. The platform sways rather than shakes, a feeling like a boat moving through a windy sea, no books fall.

This system was first invented by an Italian in the early 20th century and has been in use for many public buildings, including bridges, schools and government building, deemed important. Whether newly built houses are also deemed important, remains to be seen: According to engineers, adding the seismic isolating platform adds an extra 10 to 15 percent to the cost of a new building.

But while the last tent is likely to be dismantled this year, L’Aquila’s re-housing scheme is but the first step towards rebuilding the community: The earthquake destroyed not only homes, but also the region’s economy. While the university has reopened, thousands of local businesses remain closed, an international call center recently closed its doors, and tourism has plummeted as historical houses lie in ruins. Residents have lost their jobs and many left the region, living in provisional houses, hotels, with friends or in holiday houses by the cost. Officials fear depopulation, as people leave in search of jobs, despite their shiny, new, earthquake-proof houses.

Image by Naomi Conrad