The Terror

It began like the sound of an approaching tube train at 3:30 in the morning.

I woke up to hear the roaring turn into vibration as if a train was thundering through the bedroom. The chandeliers and every item on the bathroom shelves was rattling as a "chink-chink-chink-chink". I jumped out of bed. My wife Maria also jumped out of bed, but lost her balance on the shaking floor and fell against the wall.

I ran through our bathroom to the top of the stairs to rescue our daughter below. The power was off and the house was in pitch darkness. I ran down the stairs as the shaking began to subside.

Calm returned. I sat down. My heart was pounding, and I felt sick with fear.

We spent the rest of the night prepared to run out of the house, as the true horror began to emerge on the RAI24 news channel.

We were safe, and our house was intact. We heard the commotion of voices and movements from the piazza through the night, and the occasional cascading rumble of collapsing masonry.

In the morning we came to realise the true extent of the damage to our town, annd the devastation around us.