Gcoforum. Vol. 15, No. 4. pp. 489-516.1984 mm-7185/84 s.oo+oo.o Printedin Great Britain. Per@mon Press Ltd. Housing Crisis after Natural Disaster: the Aftermath of the November 1980 Southern Italian Earthquake DAVID ALEXANDER,* Amherst, MA, U.S.A. Abstract: The problems of mass-homelessness created by the earthquake of 23 November 1980 in southern Italy were tackled by the Italian government in two phases, respectively involving resettlement of the survivors in temporary prefabricated homes and reconstruction of permanent housing. This paper firstly describes and evaluates the programme of temporary shelter provision, showing that, although it was successful in rehousing survivors, it has helped to alter the urban layout and architectural style of villages in the disaster area and, coupled with indiscriminate demolition of damaged buildings, has reduced the emphasis on permanent reconstruction. Special powers adopted by the government to achieve the resettlement are also evaluated. Next, the main reconstruction laws, which were passed about 6 months after the disaster, are examined. Large-scale financial provision for the reconstruction process is shown to have been tempered by bureaucratic delays, legal complexities and a certain amount of inequity in the distribution of funds. Aftershocks and subsequent earthquakes are described in terms of how they prolonged the psychological and physical emergency and helped to stimulate official preparedness for disaster relief. Finally, landslides, floods and other natural disasters occurring during the aftermath of the 1980 earthquake are shown to have had a cumulative effect that resulted in the formation, in 1982, of a Ministry for Civil Protection and the belated strengthening of national measures for disaster relief and prevention. Introduction The earthquake of 23 November 1980 in southern Italy caused 2735 deaths, injured 8842 people and left at least 280,000 homeless. The 686 affected comuni (municipalities) were spread over 23,670 km’, or almost 8% of national territory. It was the worst such disaster in the Mezzogiorno since 1915, and the worst to affect the Province of Naples (Figure 1) since 1883. Subsequent aftershocks and minor earthquakes have done a surprising amount of damage and have also complicated the main rehabilitation and reconstruction effort, while the broader issues involved in reconstruction planning have been further complicated by a variety of natu- ral hazard events. *Department of Geology and Geography, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, U.S.A. 489 This paper will give an overview of the response to earthquake effects and other natural hazards in the Italian South during the 3 years immediately follow- ing the 1980 disaster, tracing the progress and pit- falls of the recovery process and evaluating the gov- ernment’s measures to resettle homeless survivors. Previous Studies of Housing Crisis after Disaster A significant amount of literature on post-disaster housing crisis has developed in recent years. Studies have been made of the architectural and technolog- ical aspects of emergency housing (MARKING, 1971; DAVIS, 1978), planning aspects (UNDRO, 1982)) sociological perspectives (SNARR and BROWN, 1982), migration and patterns of demand for shelter (BELCHER and BATES, 1983) and Third World concerns (BATES and KILLIAN,
Transcript
Gcoforum. Vol. 15, No. 4. pp. 489-516.1984 mm-7185/84 s.oo+oo.o Printed in Great Britain. Per@mon Press Ltd.
Housing Crisis after Natural Disaster: the Aftermath of the November 1980
Southern Italian Earthquake
DAVID ALEXANDER,* Amherst, MA, U.S.A.
Abstract: The problems of mass-homelessness created by the earthquake of 23 November 1980 in southern Italy were tackled by the Italian government in two phases, respectively involving resettlement of the survivors in temporary prefabricated homes and reconstruction of permanent housing. This paper firstly describes and evaluates the programme of temporary shelter provision, showing that, although it was successful in rehousing survivors, it has helped to alter the urban layout and architectural style of villages in the disaster area and, coupled with indiscriminate demolition of damaged buildings, has reduced the emphasis on permanent reconstruction. Special powers adopted by the government to achieve the resettlement are also evaluated. Next, the main reconstruction laws, which were passed about 6 months after the disaster, are examined. Large-scale financial provision for the reconstruction process is shown to have been tempered by bureaucratic delays, legal complexities and a certain amount of inequity in the distribution of funds. Aftershocks and subsequent earthquakes are described in terms of how they prolonged the psychological and physical emergency and helped to stimulate official preparedness for disaster relief. Finally, landslides, floods and other natural disasters occurring during the aftermath of the 1980 earthquake are shown to have had a cumulative effect that resulted in the formation, in 1982, of a Ministry for Civil Protection and the belated strengthening of national measures for disaster relief and prevention.
Introduction
The earthquake of 23 November 1980 in southern Italy caused 2735 deaths, injured 8842 people and left at least 280,000 homeless. The 686 affected comuni (municipalities) were spread over 23,670 km’, or almost 8% of national territory. It was the worst such disaster in the Mezzogiorno since 1915, and the worst to affect the Province of Naples (Figure 1) since 1883. Subsequent aftershocks and minor earthquakes have done a surprising amount of damage and have also complicated the main rehabilitation and reconstruction effort, while the broader issues involved in reconstruction planning have been further complicated by a variety of natu- ral hazard events.
*Department of Geology and Geography, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, U.S.A.
489
This paper will give an overview of the response to earthquake effects and other natural hazards in the Italian South during the 3 years immediately follow- ing the 1980 disaster, tracing the progress and pit- falls of the recovery process and evaluating the gov- ernment’s measures to resettle homeless survivors.
Previous Studies of Housing Crisis after Disaster
A significant amount of literature on post-disaster housing crisis has developed in recent years. Studies have been made of the architectural and technolog- ical aspects of emergency housing (MARKING, 1971; DAVIS, 1978), planning aspects (UNDRO, 1982)) sociological perspectives (SNARR and BROWN, 1982), migration and patterns of demand for shelter (BELCHER and BATES, 1983) and Third World concerns (BATES and KILLIAN,
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GeofonmdVolume 1YNumber 4/19&I
1982). CROUCH (1979) examined the process of village reconstruction in war-damaged Lebanon and noted that the replacement of housing was vital to the resumption of economic activity. BATES and KILLIAN (1982) analysed the substitutability of housing types in Guatemala after the 1976 earth- quake and emphasized the need to educate people about the perils of re-adopting aseismic construc- tion methods. SNARR and BROWN (1982) evalu- ated the acceptability to survivors of substitute housing after hurricane devastation in Honduras, and found that residential mobility was low, .as sur- vivors preferred to improve the housing that they had been provided with rather than move. BEL- CHER and BATES (1983), however, showed that disasters in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic accelerated pre-existing patterns of migration both into and out of the disaster areas, as many residents saw the disaster as an opportunity to realize their plans for social or economic mobility.
Several authors have constructed models of post- disaster recovery and reconstruction. For instance, QUARANTELLI (1982) divided housing provision into four stages: emergency sheltering, temporary sheltering, temporary housing and permanent hous- ing. The distinction does not have an architectural basis, but is made in terms of the amount of disrup- tion to normal household goals and routines. The phases would be expected to overlap, as with the four phases of post-disaster recovery defined by HAAS et al. (1977). These authors define: an emergency period, lasting from 1 to 8 weeks after the disaster; a restoration period, characterized by the repair of damage and provision of temporary housing, and lasting between 8 weeks and 9 months; a replacement-reconstruction period of perhaps 3 years; and a period of a decade or more during which reconstruction is linked to development. However, when HOGG (1980) applied this model to the recovery process after earthquake damage at Venzone, Fruili (northern Italy), in 1976, she found that the process was greatly retarded by bureaucracy and repeated damaging earthquakes. She hypothesized that small settlements could con- ceivably take as long to reconstruct as large cities, if the available resources are proportional to settle- ment size.
The pitfalls of reconstruction after earthquake dis- aster have also been analysed. MITCHELL (1976) examined reconstruction of the Gediz area, western Turkey, after seismic disaster in 1970. Temporary homes provided by the Turkish government were
491
abandoned by survivors, as they were culturally unacceptable, too small and too inconvenient (for example, cold in winter, or lacking in water sup- plies). Mitchell suggested providing not only a more practical and acceptable type of shelter, but one that is better suited to the specific needs of agri- cultural communities, perhaps by adding livestock facilities. He added that it might have been more sensible to divert funds from temporary shelter pro- vision to permanent reconstruction, given the unpopularity of shelters. CAVANAGH and JOHNSTON (1976) observed that the lessons of Gediz were not taken into account during the after- math of the 1975 Lice earthquake in Turkey. Once again the prefabricated shelters did not cater for the lifestyles and cultural predilections of survivors. Furthermore, Cavanagh and Johnston likened the design of the prefabs to “a cross between a building- site office and a holiday home which has strayed from its seaside resort” (p. 105).
The wider issues of how a government will distri- bute its priorities over the many trouble spots that arise after disaster, and how the priorities will change over time, were discussed by TORRY (1978) with respect to welfare, development and class conflict. He argued that “the gravity of a disas- ter increases as interdependent responses of local communities are superseded by dependencies on bureaucratic responses” (p. 303). In the American context, QUARANTELLI (1982) observed that the process of planning shelter after disaster tends to be fragmented among the various government agencies and is generally incomplete. This makes it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of measures adopted.
The present study is concerned with the ‘resto- ration’ and ‘replacement-reconstruction’ periods of Haas et al., or the ‘temporary housing’ and ‘perma- nent housing’ phases of Quarantelli. Sociological perspectives are not directly considered, but the role of bureaucracy at several levels of government and during several phases of the recovery process will be evaluated. The following account will show that some of the errors committed during the emergency housing of survivors in Turkey were replicated in southern Italy. It will also illustrate the points of weakness in planning for the resettlement of survivors and reconstruction of damaged hous- ing.
Post-1980 Housing Crisis in Southern Italy
Extensive government surveys indicate that
492 GeoforumNolume 15/Number 4/1984
buildings were significantly damaged in 506 comuni as a result of the 1980 Italian earthquake (Figures 2 and 3). On 22 May 1981 a Prime Ministerial Decree formally acknowledged that 36 municipalities were devastated and 295 severely damaged, and were entitled accordingly to reconstruction funds from the state. An extra-ministerial body, the Special Commiss~iat for the Earthquake-Affected Areas, had been convened under the Hon. Giuseppe Zamberletti, the Government Commissioner, 2 days after the earthquake in order to direct emergency relief operations, and it was then moving into the second phase of its brief, to organize resettlement prior to the main reconstruction effort (COMMISSARIATO STRAORDINARIO, 1981).
Initially, emergency shelter was provided in the form of 9791 mobile trailers, 9894 tents and 1578 railway wagons (which by 6 December 1980 housed a total of 271,989 people). Groups of survivors were also accommodated in public buildings such as schools and offices, in passenger ships and in hotels and pensions (ALEXANDER, 1982). Table 1 and Figure 4 give the distribution of homelessness across
the epicentral area and changes in the pattern that occurred during the first 3 months after the disaster. It can be seen that the percentage of each commun- ity rendered homeless did not form a simple spatial pattern, being complicated by the NW-SE elon- gation of the Apennine mountain chain and by the increase in population from east to west within the disaster area. The pattern of change in homeless- ness is similarly complicated, but has involved large positive and negative variations on the periphery of the zone of major devastation (in which homeless- ness was essentially complete and final). Homeless- ness declined when people returned to their houses after the danger of after shocks had subsided, while it increased after structural surveys led to evacu- ation orders being placed on damaged buildings. Structural survey was a slow process, lasting approximately 5 months after the disaster. For in- stance, in Basilicata Region (Figure 1) 700 techni- cians examined 73,000 buildings, comprising 228,000 apartments and 523,000 rooms, over this period (REGIONE BASILICATA, 1981). Hence the start of the resettlement phase was marked by a state of flux in homelessness.
Earthquake of 23 November (980: GOVERNMENT CLASSIFICATION OF DAMAGE
w COMUNI OESTROYEO, n ’ 34
COMUNI SEVERELY DAMAGEQ. n=313
CONUNI DAMAGED, n-337 totof * 686
LOW n-128 of i5.iv.81 Prime Minirtrriol Decr~r __ _. ^^ ^. ._ . ̂ .
Figure 2. Government classification of damage.
GeoforumiVolume E/Number 411984 493
Figure 3. Rubble of the town hall (municipio) at Solofra (AV) 18 months after the earthquake.
Table 1. Homelessness situation in the disaster area
Province No. of Final No. % of Mean 70 No. of Mean % No. of Mean % comuni with of population change in comuni fall comuni rise
homeless homeless, of No. of with with 1.3.81 comuni homeless, falling rising
Meanwhile, 100 billion lire* (U.S.$63 million) were ing and 450 billion lire (U.S.$285 million) to the allotted by the government to the purchase of hous- construction of 8000 new homes with the intention
of rapidly rehousing 38,000 survivors, or 20% of
*l billion = 1,000,000,000. U.S. $1 = approx. 1580 lire, at the time of writing.
those judged by the Special Commissariat to be in need in the extra-epicentral area. But the Commis-
494 GeoforumlVolume S/Number 4/1984
(al PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION RENOEAEO HOMELESS BY THE 1980 EARTHQUAKE
f Mooch fSSf, by camune
(from Aleronder, 19821
(b) PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN THE NUMBER OF HOMELESS
28 November fSSO- 1 March 19St, by comune
(from Alexander, $982)
Figure 4. (a) Percentage of population rendered homeless by the 1980 earthquake. (b) Percentage change in the number of homeless.
Geoforum/Volume WNumber 4/1984
sariat’s resettlement phase mainly involved provid- ing long-term temporary shelter to 253 comuni out- side the zone of major devastation and 36 comuni within it (Figure 5). The 36 devastated comuni, which are located in the Provinces of Avellino, Salerno and Potenza, contained more than 55,000 homeless citizens and had lost much of their housing stock. The zone to the west of this area contained 68,000 homeless people, while in the 55 worst affected comuni of the Province of Potenza 22% of the population had been rendered homeless. Table 2 gives an indication of the loss of housing and associated need for shelter in the worst affected communities of Potenza Province. Closer to the epicentre, in Avellino Province, communities such as Conza di Campania and Castelnuovo di Conza were enduring virtual 100% homelessness.
The shelter provided was to consist of prefabricated buildings and factory assembled mobile homes (the ‘monoblock containers’). Table 3 summarizes the provisions for acquisition and deployment of these structures, according to Ordinance No. 69 of the
495
Special Commissariat, which was issued 5 weeks after the earthquake.
The prefabricated dwellings are essentially of three kinds (though of many different manufacturers). Light prefabs typically consist of wooden frames battened to plywood, sealed with phenol resin and insulated with glass fibre. Roof panels are resin or bitumen covered. A modular structure for 4,7,8 or 10 inhabitants can be planned, with integral kitchenette, bathroom and shower. A unit of minimum size (20 m2) could be purchased for about 6 million lire (U.S.$3800) and the design life of the structure would be at least 10 years. Heavy prefabs are constructed in precast ferro-concrete with wooden fittings and consist of one or two storeys. They require more on-site assembly work and cost 16 million lire (U.S.$lO,lOO) for a 20-m’ unit, but have a design life of several decades.
According to the plan, the process of acquiring and installing this emergency housing would occur between 7 and 30 months after the disaster; and, by
LOCATION OF CONTAINERS AND PREFABRICATED HOUSING
m COMUNI CONSIDERED ‘EPICENTRAL”
COMUNI CLASSIFIED AS *EXTRA-EPICENTRAL” FOR
HOUSING PROVISION PURPOSES
COMUNI WITH NO CONTAINERS [7 ~~L~~:~~SBRa~A~~~~~~~S
Figure 5. Location of containers and prefabricated housing.
496 GeoforumiVolume 15/Number 40984
Table 2. Post-earthquake situation in the 17 worst-affected comuni of Basilicata Region
Comune Population, % of Migration Migration No. of % of % of 31.12.79 population in within abroad homeless houses those in
urban centres Italy damaged urban centres
Balvano 2391 Bella 6329 Brienza 4015 Castelgrande 1521 Marsico Nuovo 6270 Muro Lucano 7887 Pescopagano 3323 Potenza 64,513 Rapone 1402 Ruoti 3792 Ruvo de1 Monte 1775 San Fele 6081 S. Angelo le F. 1830 Satriano L. 2250 Savoia L. 1356 Tito 4630 Vietri di P. 3459
Sources: REGIONE BASILICATA (1981), SABIA (1981), UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUD1 DI NAPOLI (1981).
mid 1983, it was complete. Many of the prefabri- cated dwellings have been installed in groups as self-contained ‘villages’, often with shops and other services on site. One of the largest is Bucaletto, an encampment for 3000 homeless people that is lo- cated on the fringes of the city of Potenza in Basili- cata.
The Commissariat also recognized that a special problem exists in Naples. Prior to the 1980 disaster there were already about 10,000 homeless in this city of 1,223,927 inhabitants; and the initial esti- mates that 25,000 had lost their homes during the earthquake were later revised to 178,000, as tech- nical inspections led to more and more evacuation orders being issued to damaged homes, especially in the older, central districts (Figure 6). This last figure .would raise the number of people rendered homeless throughout the disaster area to over 400,000, but the Commissariat was concerned to rehouse only 50,000 Neapolitans, leaving care of the rest to the City Administration and to ‘natural wast- age’ caused by voluntary relocation. More than 9 separate villages, each containing up to 3400 pre-
fabs, were built at Naples (ANIACAD, 1982). The last, to house between 4000 and 4500 survivors, was erected in early 1983 and consisted of 600 two- storey monoblock buildings, which replaced single- storey prefabs that had been temporarily installed at an exhibition centre on the periphery of the city.
Problems Associated with the Temporary Housing
In broad terms there is no doubt that the Commis- sariat’s policy of rapid and widespread provision of prefabricated housing to survivors has successfully avoided what would have been a mass homelessness emergency of staggering dimensions. However, several serious problems have been caused by the strategy.
Demolition
The problems began during the emergency phase, when only 270.1 million lire (U.S.$170,000) were allotted to the buttressing or demolition of severely
GeoforumIVolume 1YNumber 40984
Table 3. Acquisition and deployment of temporary housing
497
Light prefabricated dwellings No. to be acquired (13,586, or 54%, for the ‘epicentral’ comuni) Average floor space (each dwelling) Total urban space required Total cost Percentage cost:
acquisition site construction and utilities construction and utilities for privately donated prefabs other services (prefabricated schools, offices, etc.)
24,952
45.26 m* 8.4 million mz
656,005 million lire (U.SS415.2 mn)
63.21% 30.79%
1.11% 4.88%
Steel container homes (‘monoblocks’) No. to be acquired (1948, or 16.3%, for the 36 ‘epicentral’ comuni) Average floor space (each dwelling) Total cost Percentage cost:
acquisition construction and site works
Deployment:
11,961
36.49 m* 182,008 million lire (U.S.$115.2 mn)
86.81% 13.19%
Province Light prefabs Monoblocks (percentage) Total
Avellino epicentral zone 7345 1002 8347 extra-epicentral zone 4953 2117
I:;::] 7070
Salerno epicentral zone 3134 463 3597 extra-epicentral zone 4648 1822
$Z] 6470
Potenza epicentral zone 3117 483 3600 extra-epicentral
(13.4) zone 883 150 (14.5) 1033
Benevento 250 251 (50.1) 501
Caserta - 195 (100.0) 195
Naples 482 4684 (90.7) 5166
Foggia 3 47 (94.0) 50
Total 24,962 11,285 36,247
damaged buildings and to rubble clearance. During the first 6 weeks after the disaster demolition appears to have lacked the necessary controls to prevent indiscriminate bulldozing of repairable buildings. To hard-pressed local politicians it was also an attractive solution: on small vernacular buildings it was less technically difficult than buttressing and repair; it solved the problem of unstable buildings, involved fewer questions of pub- lic safety and was administratively simple, thus en- suring that relief money was spent when it was available. There were probably also psychological reasons why demolition was deemed preferable to
preservation of damaged buildings: theories range from those identifying a simple desire on the part of survivors and town administrators to clear away their problems and the visible signs of the disaster (in other words, to “wipe the slate clean”), to those that identify an innate wish to “attack the stones that caused the hurt” (cf. VENTURA, 1982a; WALLACE, 1956).
In any case, demolition helped amplify the demands for relief at a time when many small communities were competing for scarce aid resources. When car- ried out on a large scale it also destroyed entire
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~eofo~oiume 15mumber 411984
networks of sewers, water mains and culverts for electricity and telephone lines. In the towns of Cam- pania Region affected by corruption in the building trade, demolition had the additional effect of obscuring the physical evidence that partly col- lapsed buildings had been badly constructed; there was thus a struggle for control of key demolition works among rival elements of the Cumorru, or Naples mafia, that culminated in the bombing of a bulldozer at Laviano, in the Province of Salerno, in December 1980 (FGCI, 1981). Details of such ac- tivities are sketchy for obvious reasons (RUSSO and STAJANO, 1981), but the Naples daily news- paper II Mattino reported on 13 December 1980 that an armed guard had been mounted on the rubble of the town hall at Lioni (AV)* in order to prevent impli~ted builders from stealing vital planning documents.
Effect of demolition policy on the urban fabric of towns
The demolition works stopped abruptly in February 1981, having added to the disruption of the urban fabric of many towns. In the smaller settlements of the devastated, epicentral zone this led to decentralization: at Lioni, San Gregorio Magno and Sant’AngeIo dei Lombardi (AV) villages of prefabricated buildings were erected on the edge of the destroyed town centres; and at Castelnuovo di Conza, Conza di Campania (AV) and Laviano (SA) the prefabs were situated at a distance of more than 1 km from the main settlement. Most historic settle- ments in southern Italy are intensely nucleated and this process of decentralization reversed a centuries old tradition, albeit one that has been eroded by post-War construction of new buildings on the periphery of expanding towns.
In summary, the rubble clearance policy had three effects: (i) many repairable buildings were indis- criminately demolished. This included both simple vernacular buildings and nationally important architectural monuments, such as historic churches. Both housing and cultural stocks were thus reduced more than simply by earthquake damage; (ii) bulldozing or tipping of rubble into the nearest
*In this account standard Italian abbreviations are used for provinces as follows: Campania Region: AV Avellino, BN Benevento, CE Caserta, NA Napies SA Salerno; Basificata Region: MT Matera, PZ Potenza; Puglia Region: FG Foggia.
499
landfill site precluded the use of architectural details and materials for repairing the remaining historic buildings: for example, modern mechanical means of demolition tend to damage dressed stone to the point that it cannot be re-used. As there has been an almost universal change from stone or rubble masonry to reinforced concrete construction techni- ques since 1945, supplies of good, traditional build- ing materials and architectural ornament are now limited, restricting the opportunities to repair masonry buil~n~; and (iii) rubble clearance has left many buildings (such as Lioni and Senerchia, AV; see Figure 7) without a centre. Experience elsewhere in Italy indicates that this could become a semi-permanent situation: although the core of Ancona, in east-central Italy, was vigorously recon- structed in the ten years follow~g the 1972 earth- quake there, the urban centre of Santa Ninfa (west- ern Sicily) has still not been reconstructed 15 years after demolition following the 1968 Belice Valley earthquake, and resettlement has almost exclusively occupied the periphery (BALDASSARO, 1975; PACELLI and SBRIZIO DE FELICE, 1977).
E’ect of buttressing and repair policies on the urban fabric of toowns
From December 1980 to March 1981 the Special Commissariat issued 11 ordinances relating to the financing and regulation of building repairs. Reconstruction was formally embodied in State Law No. 219, of 14 May 1981, which financed the ordinances issued to date. The state allocated 950 billion lire (U.S.$~ million) to the repair of 157,499 houses that had been certified by official structural surveyors as damaged. One-third of this sum was to be spent in the comune of Naples, which has a substantial reserve of damaged building stock, and a further 44% in the large and medium urban centres (greater than 60,000 ~pulation) of Napies and Salerno Provinces. The Commissariat’s Ordinances Nos 80 and 302 of 1981, and Law No. 874 of 22 December 1980, provided for up to 10 million lire (cu. U.S. $6300) per dwelling to be granted by the state to owners who wished to carry out private repairs (Table 4).
Initially, there were substantial bureaucratic prob- lems with this policy in that grant applications were required to be filed by 1 March 1981 and backed by the results of official structural surveys, which had been initiated under the Commissariat’s Ordinance No. 5 of 28 November 1980. But by the due date not
500 GeoforumiVolume IYNumber 4/19X4
Figure 7. Ruined and bulldozed historical centre of Senerchia (AV).
Table 4. Direct grants for the repair of damaged buildings (Law 874 of 22 December, 1980, Article 3, letters D and E: Commissariat Ordinance 80)
Province Repair value assigned (million lire) Number of dwellings Mean grant per dwelling (million [ire)
Avellino Salerno Naples
city province
Caserta Benevento Potenza Matera Foggia
Total
119,000 million lire 140,121
311 .Y30 48.899 224,457 38.028
30,240 5940 30,24(1 4154 75,040 8443 14,660 2838
4302 837
950,000
16,X82 31,478
157,499 mean 6.0
7.0 million lire 4.5
6.4 5.9 5.1 7.3 8.9 5.2 5.1
all of the surveys had been completed (the City of Naples alone required 46,440), and accredited engineers were asking up to U.S.$3800 per dwelling for private surveys. Finally, the deadline was extended.
Problems also arose from the interdependence of individual dwelling units. In historical towns houses are commonly arranged in irregular insulue, where
each building is attached to the next (and some buildings may be occupied by several families). Population densities tend to be high, access res- tricted by the narrow streets and instability in one building likely to compromise the stability of others in the insula. Substantial use of wooden buttresses tended to restrict access to sound buildings (as, of course, did the danger of collapse of unsound masonry; Figure 8). In addition. the interdepend-
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Figure 8. Buttressing of damaged building restricts access to Via Pretoria, the main shopping street of Potenza city. Photograph taken 1 month after the earthquake.
502 GeoforumNolume S/Number 411984
ence of buildings meant that a degree of accord between the owners of neighbouring properties was required before repair work could be carried out: this was sometimes difficult to achieve when owners came from different income groups or had different expectations of the reconstruction process. If reconstruction could not be arranged while funds were available, there was a chance that buttressing would last ‘for ever’. For example, at Gemona de1 Fruili, in north-eastern Italy, certain buildings were still buttressed 8 years after being damaged in the 1976 earthquakes, although reconstruction was pro- ceeding rapidly elsewhere in the town (see GEIPEL, 1982).
An example of this problem is given in Figure 9, which shows the historical centre of Tricarico (MT; population of the conune 8519), in which 26% of buildings were damaged by the earthquake. This urban core is typical of the agricultural settlements of central-southern Italy: buildings are clustered
into an area only 900 x 250 m; and there are 197 insulae, with a mean of 6.65 properties per insula, and 1310 properties in all. Although some of them are not permanently inhabited, population densities, at about 5530 persons/km*, are 10 times that of the comune as a whole (53 persons/km*). Many access roads in the historical centre are no more than 2 m wide, and many properties are multiple occupance buildings, as well as being attached irregularly to other buildings. The state of maintenance of these buildings varies greatly. Had the damage been as serious here as it was in similar centres nearer to the disaster area, it would have been difficult to maintain the functional viability of the insulae and access streets, and thus of the centre as a whole.
In many communities the problem of restoring dam- aged historic buildings, and also of placing them in a harmonious urban context, was insurmountable, given the time limits on the availability of funds and
(a) DlSTRlBUTlON OF STREETS AN0 PROPERTIES
(b) DISTRIBUTION OF INSULAE
NUMBER OF PROPERTIES PER INSULA
m OAMAGED PROPERTIES
0 100 200m
Figure 9. Tricarico (Province of Matera): historical centre.
GeoforumlVolume WNumber 411984
the slowness of the bureaucracy that was required to distribute them. This jeopardized the principle embodied in Law No. 219 of 1981, the main reconstruction law, Article 27 of which pledged the state to “restore the architectural heritage of dam- aged communities and safeguard the ethnic, social and cultural roots of society.”
Architectural and Planning Problems of the Temporary Accommodation
The Commissariat described the second, or ‘resettlement’, phase of its activities as designed to “lay the foundation for civil, administrative, social and economic reconstruction in the damaged territories.” Various laws and decrees stipulated that geological investigations must precede the siting of prefabricated resettlement ‘villages’, and that the newly created regional and provincial geological offices would undertake them. In many cases this was the first concerted engineering geology investigation to be carried out at a given town in the epicentral area, and it often highlighted the lack of stable ground adjacent to damaged settlements and accessible to them using the existing road network. Slopes close to their limiting angles of stability needed expensive terracing, while drainage and water table management were also costly, and not always easy. The work of urbanizing land for the prefabricated villages had to be done carefully because most of it could not be reconverted back to agricultural use after the prefabs had ceased to be occupied (posing the risk that it would finally become derelict land).
During the first 4 months after the earthquake, southern Italy became the preferred marketing ground for companies manufacturing prefabs. The wooden, light-walled dwelling is not indigenous to the area, and thus its introduction in large numbers has added an architectural note that is utterly extraneous. This is especially true, given that many of the designs adopted were originally intended as holiday villas: Nordic, Colonial, Alpine, Swiss chalet, rustic ‘log cabin’, imitation country cottage and even ‘Disneyland’ styles appeared in towns that had hitherto only known rubble masonry walls, pan-tiled roofs and a certain amount of rather plain, modem ferro-concrete construction. The prefabs also came ‘with a variety of colours and textures: pink walls and green shutters, varnished pine, polyurethane ‘pebbledash’, and so on. Often they had verandahs, steeply-pitched roofs and gabled
503
entrances, all of which are elements not found in the local architectural vernacular.
A specious urban planning evolved with respect to the emplacement of prefabs after they had been brought in by convoys of trucks. Units were arranged around a central ‘courtyard’, or staggered in order to create a rhythmic rather than regular appearance. Access roads were made into one-way traffic systems, sapling trees planted and street- lighting added (Figure 10). Shops, clinics, libraries, churches and even town halls were created out of prefabricated units. In many comuni it was the first time that development had followed an orderly and concerted plan, but among Italian architects and planners the prefabricated villages earned the title of ‘fake towns’ (le cittd finte), because of their pro- pensity to mimic, without actually replacing, true urban planning (VENTURA, 1982a).
Bucaletto, at Potenza in Basilicata region, is one of the largest and most complete examples of a prefabricated community. The earthquake had rendered nearly 30% of homes in this city unusable (of which two-thirds were repairable), and of 66,587 inhabitants, 15,000 were homeless. Some 5835 left the area (see Table 2), leaving 9000 to house, 3000 of whom were allotted prefabs in the Bucaletto encampment. The site is an outcrop of Pliocene conglomerates and sands and Oligocene marls, located to the south-east of Potenza City about 2.3 km from its centre. The outcrop rises 56 m from the floodplain of the nearby River Basento and has required substantial terracing with thick concrete retaining walls. Light-walled prefabs are grouped into several neighbourhoods, some of which are made up of a series of enclaves, around which up to 6 houses are grouped. On the top of this ‘citidel’, a prefabricated church, schools and social centres are located, with shops, telephones, a library, a bank and a police station on the second terrace. All of these buildings are prefabricated. The whole is a good deal cleaner, saner and more rationally planned than the speculative apartment housing that characterizes the city proper, which underwent chaotic expansion after being devastated by bombing during the last war.
There are signs that many survivors have already accepted the prefabricated villages as viable housing in which to settle. Graffiti appear on the concrete retaining walls, potted plants and wrought-iron embellishments surround the doorways; and in Naples survivors have even sawn holes in the roofs
504 GeoforumNolume WNumber 411984
Figure 10. Bucaletto, Potenza, where 704 prefabs have been installed.
of single-storey container homes in order to build their own second storeys or ‘home extensions’. Many survivors interviewed in the village of Sal- vitelle (SA) confidently expected that the prefabs would outlive their design lives and thus be handed on to the next generation. It would, in any case, be difficult to restore to some other productive use the immense areas of tarmac roads, concrete terraces and hundreds of concrete plinths that have been created for the prefabs. At Partanna in western Sicily, for example, reconstruction has permitted the evacuation and abandonment of a prefabricated village covering more than 1 km*, which is now effectively derelict land.
Natural hazards insurance in Italy is extremely limited and there is widespread reliance on ad hoc state subventions, which commentators have dub- bed in irony ‘assistentialism’. This is balanced against the social disadvantages of being labelled a ‘disaster victim’ in the long term. The net result is
that assistentialism accentuates the gap between rich and poor, endowed and deprived people which the earthquake itself had already widened. Similar discrepancies in the post-disaster expectations of different social classes were noted after the 1972 Nicaraguan earthquake (KATES et al., 1973) and the 1976 Guatemalan earthquake (GLASS et al., 1977).
The creation of large prefabricated villages thus has the positive effect of providing an easily accepted solution to the post-disaster housing shortage, but the negative effect is that the accent may be taken off permanent reconstruction. Although less aesthe- tic, the monoblock containers are in some ways a more honest solution to the problem. As they do not necessarily require concrete pads (being sup- ported by steel jacks that raise them off the ground), they can be mounted within the pre- existing urban system with less modification of the sewerage and utilities networks than is necessary for
Geoforum/Volume 15Nunber 411984
the prefabs. Unlike many of the designs for light prefabs, they do not have an air of permanency; indeed, they can easily be removed and reused (507 containers used in the the 1980 earthquake zone had in fact been brought directly from the 1976 Friuli disaster area, where they had recently been vacated after the successful reconstruction of permanent housing). Perhaps the main drawback of container housing is that it is less pleasant to live in than the prefabs. In particular, the steel monoblocks tend to retain too much heat during the summer, even though many of them have been supplied with a double roof in order to reduce overheating.
The inter-relationships of damaged structures, demolition areas, prefabricated service buildings and prefabricated residential quarters are summa- rized in Figure 11, which shows how earthquake devastation has led to decentralization in many of the villages of Campania and Basilicata.
Assessment of the Government~s Res~lement and Reconstruction Programme
The following evaluation of governmental response to the housing crisis created by the 1980 earthquake deals with the role of the Special Commissariat, the efficacy of the main re~nstruction law, No. 219 of
505
1981, and problems of bureaucracy associated with the financing of repair and reconstruction measures.
The Special Commissariat
Zamberletti’s Commissariat had, in fact, been con- vened during several previous emergencies, includ- ing the 1976 Friuli earthquakes. However, after the 1980 disaster it was destined to last considerably longer than on previous occasions: Law No. 456 of 6 August 1981 prolonged its term of office from June until December 1981, and then Law No. 187 of 29 April 1982 prolonged it until 31 December 1982. During these periods the Commissariat disbursed about 5000 billion lire (U.S.$3160 million) from the national Exchequer and issued several hundred ordinances regulating the conduct of the aftermath.
Six main criticisms have been levelled against the Commissariat and its activities (REGIONE BASI- LICATA, 1982-1983). First, the extraordinary powers vested in the Special Commissioner and his Office may have been too draconian. The ordi- nances had a status akin to that of national laws, yet had not been formally debated in Parliament. The Commissioner also had absolute authority over regional and local government, and even over the armed forces, in the conduct of relief, resettlement
irED LDINSS
Figure 11. Post-earthquake urban change in epicentral villages: a model.
506
and reconstruction during the term of his office. Second, the Commissariat’s activities overlapped those of normal governmental institutions, which sometimes led to duplication of measures and to confusion. Third, under Law No. 219 of 1981,120O billion lire (U.S.$760 million) was given in the form of advances prior to normal accounting, and was disbursed by the Special Commissariat. This led to confusion in the national fiscal system. Fourth, con- fusion arose over 950 billion lire spent on damage repairs by the Commissariat and 1000 billion lire granted by the government under Law No. 219. Fifth, there may have been too great an accent on social security in the Commissariat’s activities, at the expense of reconstruction: 600 billion lire were spent on temporary shelter, 453 billion on social assistance and 100 billion on unemployment benefits, while the reconstruction process needed better funding. Finally, the Commissariat’s Ordi- nance 80 of 1981 provided for the survey of damage and ratification of repair plans but did not ade- quately finance the repairs. In Basilicata 82% of grants for the repair of public housing and schools that had been approved under Ordinance 80 were left by the Commissariat to be financed under Law No. 219. Nevertheless, the process of resettlement
GeoforumNolume WNumber 411984
was satisfactorily achieved, by virtue of adequate funding and the Commissariat’s wide-ranging powers.
The final act of the Commissariat consisted of designing a Parliamentary Bill to set up a national civil protection service. This far-reaching measure established a structure capable of co-ordinating all relief work in the event of future disasters. By plac- ing the accent on directing, liaising with and involv- ing local and regional government in the recovery from disaster, and by specifying the extent and limits of powers, that Bill should ensure that future reconstruction measures are less chaotic and more democratic than the post-1980 measures.
The Reconstruction Laws
As the resettlement phase drew to a close power was gradually resumed by the government’s Comitato Interministerialie per la Politica Economica (CIPE), a committee of ministers directing fiscal expenditure. The CIPE was responsible for disbursements under the 94-article Law No. 219 of 14 May 1981. For example, Figure
epic
/ +
> 5000 million lire
1000 - 4999 million lln
ii 500 -999 million lim
EB too-499 million lin
I - 99 million lim
/
Figure 12. Subventions for the repair of private housing in Basilicata Region.
G~fo~~olume WMunber 4/1984 507
12 shows the distribution of subventions granted by CIPE for the repair of private housing in the 131 comuni of Basilicata Region. Article 3 of the Law provided 8000 billion lire (US.$5060 million) over the period 1981-1984 for the combined process of re~ns~uction and development of the disaster area (in four equal annual drafts). Of this sum, 5700 billion lire (U.S.$36,000 million) was destined for the repair and reconstruction of private housing and public works. These totals have, however, been reduced by advances of 916 billion lire (U.S.$SSO million) and 300 billion lire (U.S.$l~ ~llion~ made to the Zamberletti Commissariat in 1981 and 1982 respectively.
far-reaching proposals for development (cf. SAGOV, 1979), such as the establishment of a new university at Potenza in Basilicata Region (REGIONE BASILICATA, 1982 Articles 39-47).
Problems of Repair and Reconstruction
Several laws, decree-laws and ministerial decrees operationalized and modified the provisions of Law No. 219 during the subsequent 18 months, so that there were at least seven amendments. The Naples daily newspaper I1 Mat&to had already commented (on 10 April 1981) that the reconstruction laws were becoming too complex, and successive laws rescinded previous ones. The continuance of this situation might be taken as a sign of how pre-existing problems, such as the lack of adequate micro-seismic zoning regulations, were gradually assimilated into the reconstruction legislation process. Nevertheless, Law No. 219 contained
Perhaps the main problem stemming from the gov- ernment’s repair and reconst~~ion measures con- cerned administrative slowness, such that funds were available only ‘on paper’ and not in practice. In Basilicata Region only 25% of the 1981 funding had been received by December of 1981 and the rest did not arrive until October 1982. Three months later only 1% of the 1982 funding for the repair of private housing had been received. The problem has been variously attributed to ‘administrative paralyis’ and shortage of funds, given that reconstruction was expected to require 3% of Ita- lian GNP over the period 1981-1984.
The non-availability of funds was compounded by serious discrepancies in the estimates of damage caused by the earthquake and the cost of repairing it. Table 5 gives a comparison of estimates by
Table 5. Estimates of damage to building in Basilicata Region
Estimated by Regional Government Estimated by Council of Ministers (national government)
Category of damage No. of buildings Category of damage Number of Buildings
None 19.932 none/irrelevant 36,656 Irrelevant 20,453 Light 25,468 lightly cracked 28,435 Notable 10,770 Grave 7857 seriously cracked 25,101 Very grave 3860 Partial collapse 1557 destroyed 4591 Total 90,231 total 94,783 Inhabitants 245,716 inhabitants 257,811 Value of damaged 4404 billion lire value of damaged 916.67 billion property property lire
Regional government’s cost estimates Buildings destroyed: 13,965 X 50 million lire = 698.25 billion Iire Buildings repairable: 58,959 x 30 million lire = 1768.77 bn
total = 2457.02 bn
National government’s cost estimates Buildings destroyed: 4591 x 41.5 million lire = 190.52 billion lire Buildings seriously cracked: 25,101 X 26.5 million lire = 665.17 bn Buildings lightly cracked: 28,435 X 2.25 miltion lire = 63.98 bn
total = 916.67 bn
508 GeoforumNolume 15/Number 411984
regional and central government of damage to buildings in Basilicata Region. Central government estimated that damage had cost 916 billion lire (U.S.$580 million), but the regional government argued that this sum would only cover about 30% of the cost of repairs. Although the two estimates of the number of buildings damaged are roughly the same, the interpretation of what this meant in terms of the cost of repair and replacement differed. Cen- tral government had previously stated that 83.47% of damage occurred in Campania Region and only 15.76% in Basilicata, but it had probably underestimated the number of buildings requiring demolition in the latter region; and 40% of the residents of Basilicata were in some way directly
affected by damage to housing there. On the other hand, the region’s estimates of damage costs are enigmatic and inconsistent with estimates of the number of buildings in each category of damage.
Nevertheless, Basilicata had made elaborate plans for recovery after the disaster. These included 22 structure plans,.-49 reconstruction plans, 27 plans for public housing, 30 plans for industrial growth (including setting up nine new industrial areas and creating 6000 new jobs) and 25 seismic microzonation studies. However, Figure 13 shows that there was some conflict between local, regional and central government in the financial plans for repair and reconstruction (compare with Figure 12).
APPROVED VRBhN REPAIR AND RECONSTRVCTlON GRANT APPLICATIONS
8
< (000 million lirr
(000 - 3500 million lire
0 3600-5900 million liro
0 2 6000 million lira
PERCENTAGE GAANTEO BY CIPE. f96(-(963
/g !-50X
a-99%
4M)x
404-t5ox
ISi-199%
DISTANCE FROM 2,200%
150 km
Figure 13. Basilicata: financing of local reconstruction plans, 1981-1983.
~eoforu~olume WNumber 411984
Figure 13 contrasts the sums of money requested by individual comuni in Basilicata under procedures outlined in Article 14 of Law No. 219, with moneys granted by CIPE, the interministerial committee, on the basis of regional reconstruction plans. It can be seen that some comuni received subst~tially more than they expected, whereas others were ‘starved’ of funds. Predictably, sums of money requested decline with distance from the epicentre. However, large excess payments occurred to com- uni within the 25-km radius, large unde~a~ents occurred within a 25 to 75km radius and payments equalled requests only in the case of the smaller financial requirements of comuni more than 50 km from the epicentre. Thus it appears that there was a measure of financial chaos, or at least inequity, in the more heavily damaged settlements of the epicentral and extra-epicentral zones.
Effect of aftershocks and subsequent earthquakes
The re~nstruction effort, in both financial and practical terms, was complicated by the occurrence of aftershocks, subsequent earthquakes and seismically induced landslides during the resettlement phase and after. These have had psychological, physical and logistical effects on the post-disaster situation.
Aftershocks
It can fairly be claimed that the populations of the Mezzogiorno remained highly sensitive to the threat of renewed earth tremors during the 3 years after the 1980 disaster. The aftershock of 14 February 1981, for example, did not cause many buildings to collapse but provoked widespread panic and mass hysteria, and in the Naples area nine people died of heart attacks. Tremors occurring in the Adriatic Sea near Crete on 17 August 1982 caused panic in Puglia Region, south-eastern Italy, 700 km away from the epicentre, even though the probability of damage was extremely low and the local intensity only III- IV on the MCS scale. On 15 August 1982 an after- shock caused panic at public gatherings in the town of Melfi (PZ). That night the residents of perfectly sound houses began to demand accommodation in the prefabs occupied by the survivors of the 1980 disaster.
509
Physical problem
The weakening effect of aftershocks on historic or dilapidated buildings was the subject of much worry to the authorities, who wanted to minimize the number of evacuation orders issued. At Mirabella Eclano (AV) four apartment blocks that had been improperly repaired after the 1962 earthquake (magnitude 6.18) collapsed in the November 1980 disaster, and in one block alone 19 people were crushed to death (I/ ~at~no, 31 December 1980). Furthermore, at Balvano (PZ) the collapse of the parish church, killing 66 parishioners, could be traced to 18 years of poor maintenance (FGCI, 1981). Thus it was clear that similar events could be expected during the aftermath of the 1980 earth- quake (especially where there were large concentra- tions of poorly maintained buildings, as at Naples), and in fact 3 weeks later a further tragedy occurred. The Albergo dei Poveri, in Naples city, is a sizeable public building dating from 1751. At the beginning of December 1980 it was structurally surveyed by an achitect from Naples University, who certified it for occupance. Then on December 13 one wing col- lapsed, killing eight old age pensioners and their nurse. The tragedy could have been greater, in that 80 homeless families had been living in the attic of another wing of the building since 1978.
The problem was by no means solved after the issue of evacuation orders. At Borgo Loreto, a district of Naples, 16 families were ordered to evacuate a 5- storey apartment block immediately after the 1980 earthquake. As no alternative accommodation was offered to them, they remained. On 13 August 1982 a new inspection resulted in the immediate, forced evacuation of four families; and then on 16 August, less than 24 hours after a major aftershock that had its epicentre roughly coincident with that of the 1980 tremors, the four evacuated apa~ments col- lapsed. The evacuees were even then running a serious risk, as they were encamped in automobiles almost in the shadow of the building.
Log&ical problems
The aftershock of 15 August 1982 provoked a highly varied response from local authorities. The tremors occurred during the main August vacation weekend, and at Avellino even certain emergency switchboards, such as that of the Prefecture, had shut down. But in the Sannio area north of Benevento, where intensity V was experienced, technicians were able to carry out a prompt and
510
rapid field survey in order to reconstruct the spatial dimensions of the risk of damage to housing; and this illustrates the value of training and practice, or earthquake readiness.
Subsequent Earthquakes
On Sunday 21 March 1982 an earthquake of magni- tude 4.85 occurred near Maratea, 100 km to the southeast of the 1980 epicentre. No deaths were reported and few people were injured, but 1357 people were rendered homeless in the Provinces of Potenza (Basilicata Region) and Cosenza (Calabria Region). Some 138 houses in the historical centre of Maratea (PZ) were damaged, 79 of them seriously. This led to the issue of 70 evacuation orders directly after the earthquake. One hundred mobile trailers were transferred from collection centres further north, where they had recently been recovered after the transferral of the 1980 survivors to prefabs. Several towns in Basilicata suffered notable damage to housing, and industrial enterprises were forced to close as a result of structural damage. At Papa- sidero, in Cosenza Province 21 km southeast of Maratea, 80% of dwellings were visibly damaged and 350 people rendered homeless, and at Aieta, in the same locale, 70% of buildings were damaged.
The 1982 earthquake generated a very rapid response from the Italian authorities. Manpower, equipment and the first 33 trailers for the homeless arrived from Naples and Salerno a few hours after the tremors; and Signor Zamberletti, the Special Commissioner for Disaster Relief, visited the area on the same day. Thus the March 1982 disaster highlighted the importance of preparedness and readiness on the part of the authorities in relieving the sufferings of the homeless: but it also demon- strated that an earthquake of relatively low mag- nitude, occurring in a sparsely populated area (average 60.24 persons/km*), can cause significant damage and disruption, especially where there are many poorly maintained, low-strength masonry structures.
Seismic Landslides
Close to Maratea, the March 1982 earthquake caused rockfalls that blocked four roads for a period
GeoforumiVolume lS/Number 40984
of days. At the same time there was renewed landsliding in the town of Bisaccia (AV), located 50 km to the ENE of Avellino, on the varied lithology of the Lagonegro formation (Trias-lower Miocene; siliceous, calcareous -and argillaceous sediments). Bisaccia had experienced landsliding damage since the 1930 earthquake (magnitude 6.5), which killed 18 inhabitants and damaged 1537 houses there; and the November 1980 tremors caused damage to about 1000 homes, much of it as a result of sliding along three shear planes located directly under the urban fabric. By 23 March 1982 the number of evacuation orders on buildings in Bisaccia had risen to 1921,72.7% of which were homes, the rest being barns, stalls and cellars. A total of 480 mobile homes had been supplied since the 1980 earth- quake, but nearly three-quarters of them (358) still lacked utilities and therefore had not been assigned to homeless families.
The situation at Bisaccia illustrates how post- earthquake landsliding can cause an ongoing crisis that lasts for years in an urban centre. The time- scales associated with landsliding that is directly or indirectly related to the 1980 earthquake differed among the 42 towns affected, the distribution of which is shown in Figure 14. In some, such as Caposele (AV), landsliding rapidly followed upon the main tremors. In others, such as Calitri (AV; Figure 15) and Grassano (MT), landsliding took place following heavy rain some days after the earthquake (at Grassano 1500 people were finally evacuated from 334 ruined buildings); and at San Fele (PZ) full-scale evacuation did not take place until a month after the disaster, by which time the slow movement of several square kilometres of ter- rain was endangering the town. There are even signs that the abrupt subsidence of 2.7 km3 of land in the comune of Marsico Nuovo (PZ), which occurred on 28 February 1983 and damaged 60 farmhouses, may have been stimulated by the 1980 tremors (LAZZARI et al., 1983).
From 17 to 20 October 1982 a swarm of earthquakes occurred in the Perugia area, central Italy, with a maximum intensity of VIII on the Modified Mer- calli scale and maximum body wave magnitude of 4.4. Precious works of art were damaged at Assisi, where 500 people were also faced to evacuate their homes. This minor disaster illustrates the extreme vulnerability of communities in Italy to small-scale tremors, and it heralded the start of a winter that was particularly severe, in natural hazard terms, throughout the country.
Geoforum/Volume 15INumber 411984 511
LAND OVER SOOm
URBAN LANDSLIDES
CE PROVINCIAL CAPITALS
0 25 50hm
Figure 14. Location of urban landslides.
Other Natural Hazards and their Cumulative Meet
Although in Italy the period from December 1980 to October 1982 was relatively quiescent, it was marked by some serious natural hazard events: flooding of the PO River in northern Italy, drought and windstorm damage in Sicily, tornadoes near Verona in the Veneto, and several damaging earth- quakes in the centre and north of the country. But 1982-1983 involved some rather more serious events. Flood damage in the Regions of Marche, Emilia Romagna and Tuscany was measured in bil- lions of lire and at Ancona, capital of the Marche, a single landslide destroyed 785 homes and caused U.S.$740 million of damage (ALEXANDER, 1983).
As 1983 wore on, drought, which had caused U.S.$lOO million of damage in the Mezzogiorno during 1982, proceeded to devastate crops in Puglia, where yields were reduced by as much as 70%, and Calabria, where 75,000 hectares of grain were
ploughed under. In Basilicata, water shortage adversely affected three-quarters of all cultivated land (BRANCATI, 1983). During March and April Mount Etna in Sicily erupted and lava flows des- troyed roads, hotels, farmland, orchards, utility lines and homes. During April (shortly after the Marsico Nuovo landslide) a mass movement in Val Tellina, in the Italian Alps, killed 11 people and did notable damage to property. July and August were marked by the loss of 60,000 hectares of forest in fires, which are a perennial problem in the hot, dry Mediterranean summer. Finally, volcanic activity in the Phlegrean Fields west of Naples caused the gra- dual uplift of terrain, accompanied by intensified seismic activity. At the time of writing (October 1983) the town of Pozzuoli (population 67,510), in Naples Province, is undergoing uplift at more than 1 mm/24 hours and earthquakes of intensity VI or greater are occurring regularly, causing serious damage to homes.
This apparently endless list of disasters seems to have finally brought home to the Italian govern-
512 GeoforuWolume WNumber 4/1984
Figure 15. Seismically induced landsliding at Calitri (AV).
ment that a concerted and permanent strategy is needed in order to combat natural hazards. Law No. 996 of 8 December 1970, concerning civil pro- tection, was not formally operationalized until 6 February 1981, and the 1970s were years of ad hoc disaster planning. However, by 1982 it had become clear that the 1980 Zamberletti Commissariat could not be disbanded unless something were to take its place, and so a Ministry for Civil Protection was established, under Sig. Vincenzo Scotti. This minis- try was financed with a disaster relief ‘reservoir’ (serbacoio) of public funds, which was initially set at 180 billion lire (U.S.$114 million). However, such is the cost of natural disasters that this sum was very rapidly disbursed on only three catastrophes, the Umbrian earthquakes of October 1982, the Novem-
ber floods and the December landslide at Ancona. Most of the money went towards the cost of relocat- ing and maintaining in temporary accommodation the people made homeless by these disasters. The use of hotels for this purpose at Ancona alone cost U.S,$10.76 million.
Seismic microzonation, leading to the imposition of seismic building codes on comuni in Basilicata and Campania, was not completed until 1981, involving a more than five-fold increase in the number of seismically classified comuni (Table 6), putting most of the two regions under the jurisdiction of regula- tions outlined in Law No. 64 of 2 February 1974 (Figure 16). Furthermore, a seismic retrofitting code was not adopted until 1982. Such measures
GeoforumNolume U/Number 4/1984 513
Table 6. Seismic reclassification of comuni after the 1980 earthquake
Province No. of comuni originally classified No. of comuni in reclassification
1st category 2nd category Total s=12 s=9 s = 916 S=6 Total
Avellino Salerno Naples Caserta Benevento Potenza Matera Total
Figure 16. Seismic reclassification of comuni after the 1980 earthquake.
were, of course, too late to prevent damage in November 1980 and, effectively, they demonstrate that the extent of seismic risk in the two regions was not appreciated by the legislators, until after the 1980 disaster (PROVINCIA DI NAPOLI, 1981).
The pattern of slow but increasing government involvement is typical of Italian disaster response. The contamination of Seveso, a suburb of Milan, in
1976 by explosive venting of dioxin from a trich- lorethylene plant is a case in point. Evacuation, rehousing and systematic decontamination of top- soil were not carried out until market garden pro- duce had adsorbed traces of dioxin and residents had begun to develop chloracne disease (HAY, 1982). It would not be far from the truth to say that the level of government response was inversely pro- portional to the tide of public criticism against it.
514
In this respect disasters such as the 1980 earthquake are more than just an order of magnitude different from the smaller catastrophes, for the homelessness that they provoke is so overwhelming and so immediate that the government cannot ignore them. For example, Ancona managed to obtain from the central government about 15.7 % of the cost of its landslide in resettlement aid but Marsico Nuovo could only obtain 0.5-0.1 %. It was made clear to local politicians in both cases that they would have to bargain with central government for aid, but the administration of Marsico Nuovo was clearly in a weaker position in this respect than that of Ancona, having only 60 homeless families to accommodate instead of more than 700, and carry- ing less political weight than the government of a major city such as Ancona. Such comparisons are harder to make with respect to different sized earth- quake disasters, because the smaller events look much less like scaled down versions of the larger ones.
Conclusion
Housing provision and shortage after disaster can- not be considered in isolation from the evolving natural hazards situation in a country, which tends to complicate government response. The March 1982 earthquake at Maratea, southern Italy, came during the resettlement phase of the 1980 disaster aftermath and thus provoked a rapid, if rather limi- ted, temporary response by central government. By contrast, the 1983 earthquake swarm at Pozzuoli gave rise to a belated and slow rate of government response: in August 1983, 1 year after the emergency began, leaders of the town council at Pozzuoli complained that arrangements for evacu- ation and rehousing were lacking, while the tremors continued to increase in magnitude and destructive power. The majority of the crisis at Pozzuoli fell outside the resettlement phase of the 1980 earth- quake aftermath.
The 1980 earthquake came at a time when there was a certain unmet demand for housing in the medium- size and large centres of Campania and Basilicata Regions (VENTURA, 1982b), which were tending to expand at the expense of smaller centres (those of less than about 5000 inhabitants). Rural depopu- lation had already led to the abandonment of 1.5 million hectares of agricultural land in the southern regions, while 2 million hectares needed an
Geoforum/Volume 1YNumber 4/1984
expenditure of 300 billion lire (U.S.$190 million) to restore their former productive capabilities. The environmentalist Antonio Cederna, writing in Cor- riere della Sera newspaper (Milan, 28 November 1980), was worried that the “dictat of the bull- dozer ,” in other words the razing of the damaged historic towns, would accelerate the exodus from the land to the city. He argued that urban planning in the earthquake affected areas should be specifi- cally designed to combat rural depopulation by designating the foci of redevelopment.
Instead, the greatest beneficiaries of the Zamberletti Commissariat’s Ordinances 36 and 80 (dealing with house repair) were the centres with large or expanding populations, such as Melfi (PZ), Nocera Inferiore (SA) and Avellino, rather than the smaller towns. Unfortunately, in Italy urban development has always been somewhat chaotic (CORNA PELLEGRINI and ZERBA, 1983). The time limits on reconstruction expenditure, which are intended to restrict profiteering and the misuse of grants, may not favour the reconstruction of historic buildings, which often involves difficult and time-consuming work (BINAGHI OLIVARI et al., 1980, p. xxiii). A better strategy, although one that is not prevalent in the Mezzogiorno, is to strengthen historic buildings as part of normal maintenance procedures (FEILDEN, 1980) which in general is much more economical than repairing them after disaster. Even so, the use of tarpaulin covers and some simple remedial work over and above buttressing might have saved badly damaged buildings from the ravages of frost and rain, until such time as repair funds could be accumulated. In this context, it is a pity that the official surveys of damage involved only a static assessment of building stability and inhabitability, with no reference to the urban context of each dwelling (VENTURA, 1982a). As Aydin Germen pointed out
“the information flowing from earthquake-related fields (structural engineering, geological sciences and disaster relief) is still highly ambiguous, or controversial at best, for the purposes of planning” (Germen, 1980).
He added that town planning during the aftermath of an earthquake has to cope with a situation that may already have been burdened with mismanage- ment, power group struggles and violation of exist- ing plans. These problems were especially acute for the southern Italian towns, as the combination of bureaucracy and political polarization has tended to
GeoforumNolume 15/Number 411984
restrict the spending of money when it is allocated (RODGERS, 1979). The violation of planning regulations is also widespread: for instance, at Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi (AV), close to the 1980 epicentre, a tall apartment block that collapsed kill- ing 25 people had been built with 176 fewer beams than the 568 specified in the plans. Several other notorious cases occurred in the area, and at nearby Lioni (AV) 25 planners and builders were indicted for having constructed unsafe buildings.
Perhaps the most fundamental problem that has yet to be discussed in Italy is the expected level of government indemnity in natural disasters. At pre- sent the government is regarded as indemnifier of damage to private housing, but with insufficient financial resources and sources of funds (including arbitrary increases in the value added tax on gaso- line) that are unclear or makeshift. Over large parts of the country there is little or no structural insur- ance on private dwellings, but a widespread belief in the necessity of government aid. Yet the aid is in no sense tied to pre-existing initiatives, either by indi- viduals or local government, to ensure that plans are respected and buildings strengthened against natural hazard damage, or even properly main- tained. The design of appropriate legislation might in any case fall foul of the characteristically short life of Italian governments, which has delayed the passage of other crucial environmental reforms (CEDERNA, 1983).
Acknowledgements - Comments on a draft of this paper were received from G. Hausladen and K. Centra, and are acknowledged with gratitude. The figures were drawn by Marie Litterer. Research support under grant 2-03415 of the Graduate School, University of Massachusetts, is also gratefully acknowledged.
References
ALEXANDER, D. E. (1982) The Earthquake of 23 November 1980 in Campania and Basilicata Regions, Southern Italy. International Disaster Institute, London.
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