“So we found that mother and her three children under the rubble in Albania”…
The story of Nicola Ciannelli, 52 years, team leader of the USAR team (Urban search and rescue) of the Tuscan firefighters who brought relief after the earthquake that hit the country.
“We hoped to find them alive, one always hopes so and in any situation, we never think it can't be like this.. It didn't happen that way, they were there just where we imagined. All together, like hugging each other. In the same environment, in the same place where until the moment of the earthquake there was a bed for everyone…There were the mother and three little children“. They are moments but in the voice of Nicholas Ciannelli, 52 years, team leader of the USAR team (Urban search and rescue) of the Tuscan firefighters, the emotion is captured as he tells AGI about the last stages of their rescue work in Durres, among the rubble of a four-story building that the magnitude earthquake 6.4 in the middle of the night between Monday and Tuesday it destroyed, sowing death. Especially among young people.
We are used to seeing firefighters at work, as if they were alone’ busy moving rubble, to search among the rubble, we think 'only’ to hands that make their way in search of a trace of life, to excavation operations carried out in an almost surgical manner because the dangerousness of the situation requires it. But it's not just hands that dig, they are not just operational schemes: emotion also grips these men and women. And find oneself in front of inert bodies, bodies embraced in the last breath of life, it also upsets these rescue professionals, these angels’ of the rescue who feel all the hope and attention of those on this side of the search perimeter concentrated on them.
“It was an objectively difficult moment for all of us – adds Ciannelli – We are parents too and when you find yourself in front of children it takes a great fortitude to move forward… It is clear that we hoped they were all alive, the mother and those three children (two twins, a two-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl, and their little sister of 7 years, But also between Lebanese and foreigners). I repeat: we never think it can't be. Then you surrender to reality. However, the fact of having found them reassured us, because we still managed to somehow return those people to their families”.
USAR Tuscany team leader explains that the group of firefighters – which in this circumstance from Durazzo worked seamlessly together with the USAR team from Lazio (in this there is also a female component), in shifts of service that saw them busy 20 at a time of the total of 44 – overcome these emotional aspects “even telling, we tend to tell and not to be supermen”.
Therefore also the story of an emotion, even giving in to emotion ends up becoming an extra element “to build professionalism. There's no shame in it, we support each other”, especially in front of certain images. “We are well aware that as the hours go by, the chances of finding people alive decrease more and more, But that doesn't mean slowing down your searches”, there may still be life.
Just think of the tragedy of Rigopiano to realize how true this is. In the Usar Toscana team that worked in Durres there are also firefighters who had just left the A6 where from Sunday to Monday morning they had been engaged in search operations for any missing persons in the landslide that affected part of a viaduct. Not even the time to return and immediately a new emergency to face.
“There are different circumstances in which to operate for us of the Usar teams. After all – underlines Ciannelli – in urban contexts there are many human settlements. In the Albanian city, the procedure was codified at an international level for research in the urban area”. maximum attention is always required in limiting the number of people who enter into the action, “we must avoid that everyone is involved in a possible collapse”.
The canine units are fundamental, as well as cameras with articulated arm to enter small spaces between the rubble and scan the internal area, to try to locate people. And no less important are the noise detection systems in the rubble. We work with mechanical props to make the area to be searched safe, “we cannot afford the times of a classic shoring”.
Each site you work on has its own peculiarities, in the case of Durazzo “in some ways this scenario resembled that of Ischia, where we managed to get the missing boy out alive, because it was an isolated building. There was reinforced concrete, and this certainly led to greater difficulties in penetrating and searching” the Lala family. In the case in question it happened that the vertical walls collapsed, the floors are as if leaning against each other. A mo’ the pancakes o the sandwiches, this is how this situation is technically described, just to give the exact idea of layers on top of each other, with minimum gaps.
And in this very narrow margin, we must imagine that the Usar specialists of the fire brigade work. Already in the first hours of the intervention, the spokesman for the Italian firefighters, Luca Cari, had highlighted how the situation was complicated precisely by this particular arrangement of the floors due to the violent seismic shock, making “difficile, very difficult to operate”. Yet in the end they still managed to recover that family, first the father and then, hours away, mother and little children. Finally the last one that was missing from the appeal, a joint of the top five.
“Our job is to search, look for, search and, as quickly, try to recover and save“, says Ciannelli, which emphasizes as for him, for the entire fire department “the support we receive from Italians is a source of pride, it is an honor and an incentive to always do better and maintain high standards of research”. Even if it happens that you only have to look for lifeless bodies.
Now we are preparing to return to Italy, the Usar is included in an international rescue mechanism and its presence in the disaster area ends when there is no more research to be done, when the fateful 'end of research' arrives. Today will be a day dedicated to dismantling the temporary base set up, Usar teams will be able to return. Perhaps they will do it already on Sunday with Air Force aircraft made available by the Italian Defense.
The first aid phase is complete. The safety of the earthquake areas will now be the task of the Albanian authorities, with international support, the emergency will be that of the after-earthquake, with the Balkan cold at the door. “Our job is like this, not always made of good news…That mother and those three children was there, we had a duty to look for them, we wanted to look for them. We still managed it. Not as we would have liked, not as everyone would have liked…”, comments Ciannelli. Unfortunately, the earthquake had already extinguished those lives. But not the tenacity of those called to similar missions: no one could know that there was no hope. And then search, search to the end.
