National Geographic: In the Shadow of Vesuvius Page #4

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who first noticed it,

as well as the bubbles boiling up

from steam vents on the sea floor.

If too much pressure builds,

the threat is an explosion like the

one that formed this mountain in 1538.

Preceded by a series of earthquakes,

the eruption raised the earth

more than 400 feet in just three days.

On October 4, 1983, after months

of daily tremors,

a four-point earthquake

wracked Pozzuoli.

The older buildings fared the worst.

Already weakened by a period of

renewed volcanic uplift,

many, like this church,

all but crumbled into ruin.

No one can say how many houses

were damaged,

but at least half the population

moved out

some in fear,

others at government order.

With their economy collapsed

and schools closed,

an estimated 35,000 people were

relocated to hotels

and temporary camps hastily set up

by the government.

A population already severely stressed

by a year of continuous tremors

was now uprooted from the only home

most had ever known.

In 1985 the volcanic uplift

mysteriously stopped

and people began to return to Pozzuoli

Some businesses, their buildings

destroyed or deemed unsafe,

set up temporary shops

in the town's main park.

Scientists can neither explain

the calm nor guarantee future safety.

Many residents still live elsewhere,

returning to the town only by day.

For fishermen, the best catch

is just after dawn.

So Raffaele Bucciero,

and many others like him,

must sleep in Pozzuoli

or lose their livelihoods.

Working with his son Vincenzo

every day but Sunday,

he hauls in their mile-long net.

The bountiful water are famous for

their shellfish, octopus, and squid.

Vincenzo has a full-time factory job

during the day

and has no desire to become a fisherman

But he knows his father needs help

with the physically demanding work.

Vincenzo has his own family now, but

his ties to his parents remain strong.

Raffaele's wife works perhaps hardest

of all to keep family ties intact,

traveling daily to Pozzuoli

by bus from where she now lives.

Annunziata Bucciero is too frightened

to stay in the damaged apartment

the family once shared.

Major efforts are underway to

reinforce damages buildings

by injecting new cement into them.

But for many people,

the chaos and devastation keeps

their fear of the quake palpably real.

Pozzuoli may be Mrs. Bucciero's

birthplace and home,

but surrounded by the rubble,

she is simply too terrified

to spend even one night.

To retain some semblance

of the family's former life,

Mrs. Bucciero has made a ritual

of the midday meal.

For two long years,

since their apartment was judged unsafe,

the routine has seldom varied.

They are fortunate to have inherited

from her mother

a small ground-level storage room

where the family can gather.

Making do with a portable gas stove,

she takes immense pride in being

able to provide for her family

as she has for more than 35 years.

"I was happy," she says.

"All I cared about was having

my family around me.

But the earthquake divided us."

In a few years retirement is the goal

of Raffaele Bucciero, now 61.

Until that time his life remains tied

to the rhythm of the sea.

He says:
We have this cross to bear,

my wife and I.

Our children are scattered all over.

We can't all be together,

so we fixed up this little room.

My wife and I sacrifice. I fish

and she comes and cooks and cleans.

At one o'clock the family is united,

the number of people varying

from day to day.

With their parents today are

one daughter and one son

and their respective fiancs.

It is a time to talk and laugh,

to eat and drink,

and to reenter each other's world

A time to pretend their family

has not been torn apart

and that in one short hour

they won't again be forced

to go their separate ways.

Before nightfall descends on Pozzuoli,

jitneys crowd the marketplace

to transport home

those like Mrs. Bucciero

who live a distance away.

My family is everything to me,

she says.

Alone late at night, I sometimes cry.

After dark Pozzuoli becomes

a veritable ghost town.

His net set out for the night,

Raffaele eats the evening meal

his wife has left behind.

It's very hard, he says.

At my age where would I go?

Pozzuoli has always been our home.

Home or not, many residents have been

forced by authorities to leave.

About four miles northwest of Pozzuoli

in a presumably safe zone,

the government is building a new town

for 20,000 people.

Acclaiming it the "new Pozzuoli",

officials hope it will develop

a vital social and economic life.

But many residents are doubtful.

Isolated from friends and loved ones,

they stay only because

there's nowhere else to go.

Perhaps none are more deeply affected

by Pozzuoli's problems

than some elderly who are separated

from their families and their town.

"During the quake", she says,

the walls were going like this,

and I called out to Jesus.

the ceiling was shaking and the smell

of cracking plaster was everywhere.

It is a trauma for me when I think of

when I used to live in Pozzuoli,

and it hurts to see it so deserted

and convulsed.

I miss everything in Pozzuoli,

everything. It is my home.

Generations have been shaken by fear.

A new generation waits and wonders

when the quakes will strike again.

Until now the Fiery Fields' volcanic

uplife has only been monitored on land

But the Gulf of Pozzuoli is also part

of the ancient caldera.

Prof. Lorenzo Mirabile believes a

true picture of the phenomenon

will only emerge by including a study

of the sea floor.

His team of scientists from

Naples' Institute of Oceanography

will place instruments at four

locations on the bottom of the gulf.

Surface buoys will mark their location

The instruments will indicate

any uplift of the sea floor

by measuring the changes in the height

of the water

between the bottom and the surface.

They will also monitor water

temperature and seismic activity,

taking into account such variables

as currents, tides, and storms.

Solar-powered radio transmitters relay

the data to a centralized computer.

The signals from the gulf are received

at five-minute intervals,

But Mirabile believes it will take at

least a year to accumulate enough data

to even determine what

is critical uplift and what is not.

Then, he hopes, the information,

in combination with the findings

of geologists and volcanologists,

can be used to develop an early

warning system to alert Pozzuoli

before disaster strikes.

The Fiery Fields are home to 200,000

people; grater Naples, to two million.

The evacuation of such numbers poses

astronomical problems.

Yet, without doubt,

Vesuvius is still active;

it will erupt again.

The most recent eruption, in 1944,

was filmed by the Allied troops that

had recently liberated war-torn Naples

Relentlessly for three days the lava

rolled over farmlands and vineyards,

moving ever close to the town

of San Sebastiano.

Lying just three miles below

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