Japanese Woman Choking Man

L'Aquila, today

During the few breaks we had in Sassa immediately after the lunch hour with Nino we entered the old town of L'Aquila. For both it was a very moving event. Nino has a son, April 6 to stay in college located in the historic center and running away from the earthquake that has left everything in his room, so we went to try to retrieve his belongings.

Entering walk from the gate located in front of the Fontana Luminosa means crossing a threshold that takes you on a new dimension. There are no cars passing outside of firefighters and their vehicles. The silence is absolute, one is stunned by the situation so that nobody dare open your mouth, not even speak the three fighters that escorted us. The devastation is total, a situation so extreme as to be difficult to describe. The feeling is that everything that has somehow remained standing is so damaged as to require the demolition and rebuilding from scratch. Prop fighters and only verify the dangerousness of the buildings so that means may be in transit at least on major thoroughfares. I honestly do not know how to demolish an entire town center to rebuild it, but so as to profane this seemed the only possible solution.

arrive in Via Camponeschi where there is the goal of our pilgrimage, the Jesuit College. We find the wrong door, they handed us the key to enter does not open because the frame was forced with a crowbar, the corpus delicti has even been left behind. Fighters do not lose heart and decide to go with a range from an open window on the first floor. Once inside the main entrance of return and start using the panic. Nino follows them to the son's room on the third floor. I stay to wait out the cracks in the lobby of the college are awesome, better not risk it. I made some photos and I look around. I remain particularly impressed by a long concrete shed remained hovering at a height of 20 meters after they crumbled the pillars that held her suspended on a balcony.

the side streets are clogged with debris, it is mainly of collapsed walls but also pieces of cornices, sills, windows, travertine falls and broken. Going back to my eyes notice other details, the sign of a flower kiosk mockingly cites "Monday open", thinking that the quake occurred just at dawn on a Monday. Striking the edge of the building province which overlooks Corso Vittorio Emanuele, has a crack wide enough to wonder how he can stand it. Huge white straps keep him harnessed to the rest of the structure.

Back out in the real world, the Piazza della Fontana Luminosa. Nino and I look at a moment in your face, do not say a word, the gaze of everyone tries to convince himself it had not imagined it all.