province of Aquila hit by earthquake

[adriatica]

i used to watch his program when i lived in the UK... bruno vespa... porta a porta... a sort of Italian institution... him and his pointing stick that is... he loves his diagrams and gets out this long wooden pole to point out all relevant parts from the studio floor...

anyway hes from L'Aquila ... and last night he did a special... a one month after special... always sad stories but he kept a positive approach... and as a person from there i guess he was able to make it more light hearted in a sense ... the people speaking of their experience felt at home...especially as he was able to talk to the ones that wanted in their dialect...

it was a nice program...if that's the word... full of hope... and threats... he is made a point of saying they will be there controlling how money is spent... how the schedule proceeds and this is a man to be reckoned with here...

they were also raising money... when i left it all to go to bed... i know a bit of a wimp as regards my sleep... but i do get up in the morning early... they had raised 2 millions... had a promise of ten millions...that's euro not lire...

and it was going on still .. haven't heard what the total reached last night was.. the ten millions are from the chemists association.. a chemist died in the quake and is from that sort of professional body that all chemists have to belong to...

there were interviews with the Rugby team... heroes of the hour... am shore everyone has read about them.... and various other survivors...including the Onna journalist.... from il centro.. he named who had died... how they related to the family ...as they visited each of the fallen buildings... and showed the area where the new part is to be built...full now of wild flowers and a lush green...

it was a good memorial program ... and is worth watching if you missed it... RAI do a catch up channel ... but its just to say ... like many of the forum members that are still working hard.... and are still putting in a huge effort that despite the comments Italy and the Italians have not forgotten the area either... you are in good company and the work on getting the recognition of the need to keep L'Aquila in the news and to keep pushing for a speedy and a positive reconstruction effort goes on

they have just published a list of donations so far... 22 million euro via the sms appeals...ie generally donations made by mobile phone for amounts like 2-5 euro fro each call you make.. so a lot of people.... then in total another 50 millions of donations via several diffrent Italian societies... inculding banks , supemarkets etc... this is above and beyond the govermnets retructuring money... which is in the billions...yasfrom It