Only this formidable name can be given to Ottaiano. From that terrible
Saturday night, till the following Sunday when the first threatening
signs appeared, the church bells have been ringing madly and everybody
has started to pray.
The fall of ashes increasing and getting quite menacing, Rev. parson
Luigi d'Ambrosio has requested the population to meet in the church of
the Oratorio of San Giuseppe. How many were they? Three-hundred? Yes,
perhaps three-hundred. The bells continued to ring desperately, as in
a frantic appeal, the ashes fell thicker and thicker, down bounded the
stones accumulating heavily everywhere, and crushing every thing. All
at once, with a tremendous roar, down comes the roof of the church
crushing and killing all those who were under it praying. Perhaps
hundred or eighty people have escaped, running away mad with terror,
and among these, fortunately, the Rev. parson d'Ambrosio has saved his
life.
But from one hundred to one hundred and twenty persons have been
crushed and asphyxiated under the rocks and beams of the old church,
and by the enormous quantity of ashes which have buried them. And yet,
while they are taken out by our brave and intrepid soldiers, we realize
that most of these poor victims, have really died from suffocation.
The women are many, and many are the children. But behold! Here comes
the woman of all goodness and tenderness, here comes the Duchess of
Aosta, led by her tender heart to this country of death. She bends over
the corpses and is piously praying over them.
Then she goes towards a tent where the wounded people have been
taken, and speaks kindly to them, encouraging and helping them. How
many are the corpses already drawn out from the ruins at S. Giuseppe
of Ottaiano? Sixty? There are some more. How many are the wounded?
Twenty, thirty? The soldiers are still searching and more will be
found. As for the people remaining, they are frightened to death from
the shock, we must give them bread, and shelter. This, this is really
the country of death! There, where the lava has passed, people have
fled, where showers of mud have fallen, people have been able to
escape, where there has been great danger, help has been brought, like
at Boscotrecase, Torre Annunziata, Resina, Torre del Greco, but here,
at Ottaiano, at S. Giuseppe, in this great solitude and abandon, the
terrible host, death, has passed.
April 10th 1906.