From 15 to 17 December, the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) collaborates in the initiative entitled “December 16, 1857 – 2017. 160 years after the earthquake in Val d'Agri between persistence and resilience” held in the municipalities of the Alta Val d'Agri (15 December: Grumento Nova, Castello Sanseverino, Largo Umberto I; 16 December: Viggiano, Hotel dell'Arpa, Sala Giovanni Paolo II, Largo Papa Giovanni Paolo II; 17 December excursion : Montemurro, Marsico Nuovo, Brienza).
160 years after the destructive earthquake that hit the Vallo di Diano and Basilicata in 1857, razing entire villages to the ground and causing over 19.000 deaths, the dramatic news of the earthquakes that hit Central Italy in 2016, and the more recent one of the Isola d'Ischia last August, highlighted the need to strengthen the resilience capacities of our communities with respect to seismic risk. Disaster after disaster, Italy has specialized an emergency intervention system that perhaps has no equal in the world. Italians are responding en masse to solidarity appeals but never before is the need and urgency to intervene before the disastrous event to save human lives and to minimize the destructive effects, since rebuilding a new social fabric from the rubble and production is difficult and expensive. Especially in Val d'Agri the risk is even higher than elsewhere, not only due to the seismic hazard level of the area, but also and above all because in the Alto Agri there are important infrastructures which in the event of an earthquake could amplify their destructive capacity .
In addition to INGV, other institutions and research centers will take the field to demonstrate how the innovations available today can make a difference compared to the past.
The event is divided into two days of conference on 15 and 16 December which constitute the main moment of reflection, where scholars of various scientific disciplines, humanities, territorial government institutions and representatives of the third sector, will bring their experience and expertise on territories of the Alta Val d'Agri, representing the best knowledge in the respective disciplinary sectors.
The day of 17 December will instead be dedicated to partially retracing the journey of Robert Mallet, the Irish engineer who in February 1858 led an extraordinary scientific-geographical mission among the ruins of the earthquake; an excursion guided by experts will touch some stages of this journey, important from a geological, naturalistic and historical point of view.