Some Considerations on the Seismic Event of 23 November 1980 (Southern Italy)

More than forty years after the 23 November 1980 earthquake, which devastated the Campania and
Basilicata regions, causing the destruction of a large number of towns and the death of around three thousand
people, we have tried, through a large survey, to understand how and to what extent the urban fabric and the most
affected communities have been rebuilt. Our main objective was to show, on one side, the commitment of the
scientific community, and on the other the transitions that have led from the emergency to reconstruction. Of the
Apenninic towns Conza della Campania, Laviano, Lioni, Santomenna, and others, where the devastation was
almost total, we have tried to give an iconographic vision of the post-earthquake phase through the change in the
urban layout. The partial or total reconstruction of the towns has taken place most of the time in situ, only in some
cases by relocating buildings to neighboring areas, as happened in Conza della Campania, Bisaccia and Romagnano
al Monte. Reconstruction was carried out mainly of anti-seismic buildings and only in some cases recovering preexisting
buildings in historic centres; reconstruction was completed after a very long period, in some cases lasting
over thirty years, inevitably passing through a dramatic experience of the population in temporary settlements of
various kinds, from tents, caravans, railway carriages, to containers, and finally to thermo-igloos and to
prefabricated wooden chalet-type. A very complex and detailed reconstruction was linked to factors not only
territorial, economic and political but also conditioned unfortunately by the non-negligible intervention of
organized crime.