Ischia.it english

The Tifeo’s sigh

... A jump, the Tifeo’s sigh ... so the ancients would tell the Casamicciola quake that upset the Ischian summer!
In their imagination, Ischia, the island born from the sea, between myth and legend, was the fruit of the proud fight of the Titans against the King of the Gods, the Supreme Jupiter. He, angry about their rebellion, hurled a mountain against giant Tifeo, who fell into the sea near the beach of Miseno and formed a new island with him on his belly. The legend of Tifeo who, with the other Titans, wanted to attack the Olympus, is still alive in the stories of the Ischitans, especially in the names of some island towns. Where is set Testaccio is the Tifeo’s head, where is Panza his body and belly in Lacco Ameno where the Fungo rises from the sea the unmistakable part of his body.

Thus, thanks to Tifeo, the waters of the Isle are full of his generating force, the hot and healthy springs and the land of his fertile and lush countryside. An ancient and fantastic view of the Island, handed down in the millennia from father to son, to learn to live with the volcano of the massif of Mount Epomeo. A good volcano, in full swing, that made Ischia the thermal and miracle island so much that the Romans had dedicated themselves to the cult of Apollo resonator and to the beauty of Venus, also born from the sea. But ignorance, endowed with a good deal of bad faith, has transformed the dramatic event of August 21 in a media bomb, which has led to the tragedy of the abusive, only in Ischia, in a country where even the head of government, like his most recent predecessors, is an abusive as not elected by the people.
Associating a real destructive earthquake, such as that one of Amatrice, to the volcanic earthquake that hit Casamicciola, especially in the television images of news broadcasts in the world, is a great media fake after which, for days, it is scattered in the darkness by attributing the right magnitude, the hypocentre and the epicenter to the seismic event. Collecting a series of errors that have led to false conjectures about the inadequacy of Ischitan construction because it is abusive! An opportunity missed by the scientific community to make it clear, with its designated bodies, that they should have - alas - led the Civil Protection to intervene readily for the safety and the reclamation of the encircled affected area. It didn't have to emphasize the extent of a low-power telluric phenomenon on which, due to the inadequacy of the numerous commentators of printed paper and television, is risen a kind of information vampire which, having immediately launched a media campaign against Ischian building abuses. It has destroyed the economy of an Island in the tourist season, emphasizing the damage and the danger of an earthquake in any event circumscribed. Amatrice and many other small towns in Abruzzo have been completely destroyed after the earthquake!
In the upper part of Casamicciola, because of the sudden rise and fall of the soil, a phenomenon spread in the volcanic areas that takes the name of bradisism, only a few houses collapsed and others suffered damage to be assessed in a timely manner to proceed to demolition or reclamation. Howevery to save the great Ischian tourist vocation and in full respect of a rich and unspoiled nature  - that has made Ischia a world heritage of immense value and complexity, from the thousands of tree specialties that have taken vital lymph from its territory volcanic, to the miraculous waters of its thermal springs to cure many diseases - is the time to roll up the sleeves to transform a tragic event into an opportunity to relaunch the territory.
It is important to frame the problem with accurate and widespread monitoring, through an in-depth analysis of the housing stock involved, to put it in complete safety, in full knowledge that the island of Ischia is a volcano active that needs to be studied and valorized. Understanding the right road to take in order not to wildly embellish the Green Island, respecting its beauty and fragility.
It is now unconfutable that on the island, the urbanisation abuse is the result of over 40 years of absolute bans to build without the targeted address of the State and Institutions, no doubt the main responsible for what has happened today. They have underestimated those phenomena, for years studied and monitored, and in recent times completely ignored and erased on the altar of a wild spending review. Was it not necessary in 2002 to reopen the local Geophysical Observatory in Sentinella founded by the seismologist in Trieste, Giulio Grablovitz, fascinated by the island and moved after the earthquake of 1883, remaining alive throughout his life?
Now, it is time to understand what can be, from a cultural and scientific point of view, the added value of an active volcano for the island, to be studied and monitored. Making it a universal laboratory for the knowledge of volcanic phenomena and a tourist attraction beside the clear sea, uncontaminated nature and the miraculous thermal waters to promote Ischia to the world’s attention. Why not promote, through a renewed awareness, the paths of the Epomeo volcano, or better the crater paths of Ischia Island?
Etna and Stromboli are two active volcanoes, every year hundreds of thousands of tourists!
Ischia is much more thanks to its millenary history and its unmistakable beauty!

Di Enrico Deuringer