US EPA

7217667 

Journal Article 

Pozzuoli, 2nd March 1970: memories of an evacuation 

Longo, ML; , 

2019 

SILENO EDIZIONI 

RENDE-CS 

DISASTERS IN POPULAR CULTURES 

58-75 

WOS:000535664200005 

This paper focuses on the 1970 evacuation of rione Terra, the historic core of the coastal town of Pozzuoli, just beyond the western margins of Naples in southern Italy. Pozzuoli also lies at the centre of the volcanic caldera Campi Flegrei, which has been restless without erupting since 1950. The clearance of rione Terra on 2nd March 1970 remains a crucial event in the history of the town, because the forced nature of the evacuation broke a trust in official decisions that is still felt today.The official version of the event, as presented in institutional and scientific papers, justifies the evacuation as a precaution to an uplift of the ground - a so-called bradyseismic uplift - that had continued for several weeks. Such uplift was the first since Campi Flegrei's last eruption in 1538. The scientific community and local authorities were not prepared for managing an emergency and so triggered the abrupt and forced evacuation of more than 500 homes from rione Terra. The community remembers a different story, as revealed by in-depth interviews with former residents of rione Terra and other eye-witnesses of the evacuation. They feel they had been made to suffer the social and economic damage of a volcanic eruption without an eruption actually having occurred. In their voices, the ground movement was a convenient excuse for the evacuation; the real reason was a pre-arranged plan to make poor people leave their houses for property development.Memory represents the only possibility to remember a space that no longer exists. Rione Terra remains empty and many of the evacuees now live in purpose-built housing in Toiano, an inland suburb of Pozzuoli. Those who remember that time and place are performing a new practice of resistance, to face the risk, making clear that a new strategy to reduce the vulnerability of people in the hazardous area is urgently needed. 

Memory; Oral History; Disaster; Volcano; Bradyseism 

Gugg, G; DallO, E; Borriello, D;