Diary from L'Aquila

As usual, I thought I had planned everything, as in a wedding ceremony, who must do what and when. After the 10 pm shake, 3.9 Richter, my children have been instructed to put their shoes on immediately and meet just before the front door, which was according to my husband Leo the safest point in the apartment. Then we would wait there for the end of the shake, and climb down the stairs. Also a torch is ready. I have all essential objects in my handbag, which is on the floor I keep feeling this ancestral fear that we should go out and spend the night in the car, then my rational side repeats what most experts have been saying, that there is no way to predict earthquake, the worst is surely over ... so I let my children sleep in their beds - which might have been deathtraps - I do not trust my fear, I do not realize that a healthy fear is what saves us in moments of danger. My husband keeps saying "if this house falls, all the city will have already fallen". I keep reading updates online, then decide to go to bed, leaving the lights on, and go to bed.

3.32 am
I have relived these about 20 seconds in my mind so many times, I keep reliving them and reconstructing through flashes those endless moments. I am awake when all the hell gets loose. Immediately I have a feeling of imminent death, only my kids in my mind, two here in the house, the other somewhere in town. The earthquake is much much worse than everything I could ever imagine, the beginning is as strong as all the future 20 seconds, the wardrobe beside the bed, almost 3 mt high, start to fall on me then returns back then again moves down towards me, but I am already out of the bedroom. The lights are still on in the corridor, I call my kids to get out of bed, I see at the other end Caty sleeping on the sofa in the living room and objects from the bookcase at mid air falling and I shout her to get up immediately - 3 seconds may have passed and I am still at the beginning of the corridor where a door separates the night from the day zone, a door which needs repair in the hinges and we usually leave open - I have a vision of the corridor, with the lights still on, the aquarium moving to the middle of the room, pictures detached from the wall, the floor at an angle of maybe 30 degrees and I walk with my arms open and hitting the walls to my side once to the right, once to the left, then the half open door leaves its hinges and comes towards me as in a poltergeist scene.

It is the last thing I see, electricity goes off all over. Alarms start howling, the computer accumulators beeping, screams coming from the houses around but the earth's mighty thunder covers everything. In total darkness the objects I saw falling reach the floor, sound of crashes from everywhere, Caty shouts she cannot see anything, the falling door - I proudly, stupidly chose my doors of heavy oakwood with the upper part in glass - hits me. Later I discover from the position of my bruises that I stopped the door with my right knee, the inside of the left thigh and the right elbow which I instinctively raised to cover my face - I remember shouting my husband to get up, he is not behind me and does not answer - as I reach the vicinity of the entrance door I am walking on objects and glass fragments, my daughter touches me and my son has reached me, I have somehow the torch in my hand and turn it on - the earth seems no more shaking, only trembling, but my daughter's hand is shaking, I am shaking, my son not touching me but I grasp his arm - the father arrives and I realize I am not wearing my glasses and I ask him please - how could I put him at such a risk - if he can get my eyesight glasses in the bedroom for me.

We open the front door, I do not know what happened to the torch, we have no torch any more and I hear my sister in law upstairs shouting "do not get out, wait, wait" - from the third floor my husband's brother is coming down with a huge flashlight and we get out finally, we have the safe sky above our heads - "...così tornammo a riveder le stelle".