The Irpinia earthquake

An earthquake is an event that always deeply shakes those involved in it. Yet unlike wars, an earthquake tends to be removed from people’s memory, despite their having experienced in a few seconds a shock that can cause great bewilderment in the entire community. This removal has two different meanings. The first concerns the community, because the need to forget is the prerequisite for starting anew, while the second affects the individual, because the earthquake experience is almost impossible to recall with words. This “forgetful-ness” is also favored by historians, who often see natural disasters as a sort of “accident” and instead concentrate much more on wars as historical events. This is why the 1980 earthquake in Irpinia – by far the most catastrophic event in Italy since World War II – is still not fully recognized as a watershed, with a “before” and an “after.”