EDITORIAL
that has shaken our summer
“N
o Spoon River of the poor has ever told their stories”, wrote Antonio Manzo in Il Mattino on 29 February 2004 to commemorate Italy’s worst train accident, which happened 60 years earlier on March 3, 1944, in a tunnel near Balvano, in Basilicata, killing over 500 people.
The tragic news of the rail disaster in Puglia, on the single-track line between Andria and Corato, brought to mind, both online and in the papers, the terrible smash of more than 70 years ago.
It will not be easy for any of us to forget this Tuesday July 12, when the sweet Apulian summer was shaken by the pictures and news of the tragedy which spread like wild-fire, almost in real time. The metal sheets of the two trains were monstrously crumpled, on that accursed single track through the olive trees of the Murgia. The train was carrying mainly commuters, of whom 23 are dead and more than 50 are injured, as we write. We heard about human error, and about the fact that on that part of the line a telephone block was still in operation, meaning that the communication that the line was free was given via phone with no automatic support. There was bitter irony in the news, published on the site of the firm Ferrotramviaria Spa, responsible for the two trains involved in the crash, that this week the final project for the second line between Corato and Andria was supposed to be handed in. Then the conventional words from premier Renzi: “Find out who is to blame”, and the start of the enquiry. So the buck-passing starts.
From the internet, television and the press we get short reports of victims and survivors. We were struck by the one about Samuele, a six-year old boy crying desperately, stuck between the metal sheets and alone when found, saved by the firemen who worked feverishly for over half an hour to pull him out of the wreckage while showing him the cartoons on a cellphone.
Our thoughts are with the victims, the injured, and the families struck by this terrible tragedy. After the media feeding-frenzy, this news, too, will gradually fall under a veil of silence. And no Spoon River will tell us the stories of those who, in the disaster of July 12, lost their life, or of those who lost a person they loved.
Shock, sadness, anger, with only one piece of good news: the race to show solidarity, and the long lines of people ready to give blood for the injured.
Lastly, let’s hope that the most significant phrases pronounced after the tragedy, by the bishop of Andria, will not fall on deaf ears. Monsignor Luigi Mansi laid the blame on “that habit of economics not to consider the lives of people, but to think only of self-interest and saving money ”. And then he launched a lapidary appeal in favor of the Mezzogiorno: “For too long and for so many people these lands have been considered the edges of Italy: let this be the end of it so the rights of everybody, from the weakest and most fragile and those from the edges, can be given their due respect”.
365 days a year Between America and Puglia
A time of foreboding, taking stock and making plans Puglia “best value travel destination in the world”
Besieged by kings and stars The other Puglia.
The harsh reality of the gangmaster system a world away from the glossy magazine covers If spring starts with the tragedy in Brussels 2016: a year in the sign of Puglia, also in the US TEDx Lecce
The extraordinary lives and the “revolutionary” choices of ordinary people Flavia Pennetta and Roberta Vinci
Icons of Puglia on the world scene Puglia
A hot summer of culture Lecce in The New York Times again
The love affair of the American press with Puglia and the South continues… Ben Hur in Matera
Italy’s revival may start from the South In memory of Mario Cuomo, pride of Italian Americans TEDex
From a conference comes inspiration for designing the future Puglia taken by storm by the stars
A train not to be missed Web
Vieste and Gallipoli the most-clicked by Italians Blue flags
In Puglia ten beaches with top marks Buried waste dumps, searches for oil, and a gas pipeline in the crystal-clear waters.
Let there be a stop to the misdeeds in Puglia Renata Fonte
30 years since her murder.
She was defending Porto Selvaggio Pugliamania Nebraska
An unsettling story of the other America Otranto’s tree of life
symbol of Italy at Expo 2015 End of the year with great expectations for Puglia TEDx
From California to Lecce the courage of ideas Bill de Blasio.
The most likely candidate in the running for New York mayor is an Italian American If Lecce appears in the New York Times,
if the “Notte della Taranta” attracts 130,000 people… Pianos in the streets of New York The Great Gatsby...
If, by way of the silver screen, the American dream breaks into our lives “If you see something, say something”
Considerations after the Boston attack Salento “Territory of the year 2013” 2013, the Year of Italian Culture in the United States Good resolutions at the end of the year Obama re-elected
“Dreams and pragmatism”
America’s lesson for Europe The Passing of Cristanziano Serricchio, poet of the light Ten reasons to come on holiday to Puglia “Extremely loud and incredibly close” Zeppole in California Those tears on the death of Dalla “Totally awesome” 9/11
ten years later The first time on the web