A special cemetery was set apart for the burial of the unidentified dead. In this cemetery pits about thirty feet long, twelve feet wide and six feet deep were prepared and the boxes were stacked in them in tiers, about one hundred boxes to each pit. By the middle of March about twenty-five hundred unidentified bodies had been buried in this cemetery. The condition of the bodies taken from the ruins at this late date and the oncoming of hot weather made it imperative that all possible haste should be insisted upon. No ceremony whatever accompanied the burial or the preparation for it. Bodies were placed in the boxes the moment they were exhumed from the ruins, a little later were placed on carts and driven directly to the cemetery.
Extent of the Disaster.
It is unnecessary here to speak at length upon the extent of the disaster. The earthquake affected a strip of land on each side of the Straits of Messina. The extreme dimensions of the affected area were about fifty miles from North to South and perhaps forty miles from East to West. Within this area no town or village escaped entire or partial destruction. In all more than fifty cities, towns, villages and communes were destroyed. The lowest estimate which I heard of the number of persons made homeless was five hundred thousand. Estimates of the dead range from one hundred thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand. In the course of my travels about the region I visited about twenty-five cities, towns and villages, among them all the larger ones. Wherever I went I inquired of the local authorities, who seemed best informed, concerning the loss of life. Based upon the answers to these inquiries and my own observations, I have reached the conclusion that the estimates of the number of dead have been uniformly too large. When the final estimates are made, after all bodies have been accounted for, I doubt whether the total will exceed seventy-five thousand.
I have seen no estimate of the property loss and it is doubtful whether any approximately accurate estimate can be made. Neither have I seen any figures of the amount of insurance carried on property but the result of inquiries indicates that the total insurance was comparatively small. The Italian people do not seem to have very fully adopted the policy of insuring their property. Unless such insurance as was held covered loss by earthquake, the owners of property can, in any event, collect little, if anything, from the insurance companies. The poverty of this part of Italy, coupled with the overwhelming magnitude of the loss, both of property and life, must make recovery exceedingly slow. The Italian Government is preparing to introduce measures of great liberality intended to help the people re-establish themselves.
Most of the descriptions and photographs of the results of the earthquake have applied chiefly to the City of Messina, because it was the largest city in the earthquake zone and was the point to which relief measures were first of all directed and at which lines of transportation from the outside world centered. Tourists invariably get their first view of the earthquake at Messina and many of them go no further. Descriptions of conditions in Messina, however, convey a fair idea of conditions in all the other ruined cities and towns. Messina had over one hundred thousand population, Reggio about forty thousand, Palmi about twenty thousand, Villa San Giovanni about seven thousand. These were the largest communities in the region affected by the disaster. The ruin everywhere was as complete in proportion to population as was that in Messina. In Reggio about fifteen thousand lives were lost, in Palmi five or six thousand, in Villa San Giovanni about fifteen hundred.
Relief measures were slow to reach the smaller towns lying among the mountains back from the coast. Many of these towns are upon mountain tops and are inaccessible except by donkey trails. The difficulty of access made the work of relief particularly difficult and it is probable that the suffering for food and shelter was greater in the mountain towns than in the larger cities on the coast.
Tidal Wave.
Town of Pellaro, Leveled by Tidal Wave.
Much was said in early reports about the tidal wave which followed the earthquake. Had the tidal wave occurred alone, it would have been regarded as a great disaster. But overshadowed as it was by the earthquake, it forms but a small item in the sum total of ruin. The wave did not cause much damage on the shores of Sicily, its chief force being expended upon the Calabrian coast. As the wave rushed into the small bays, the funnel shape of the shores piled the water up higher and higher until at the apex of the bays it had reached a height of many feet and rushed across the low lands adjacent with irresistible force. If a village happened to be situated at the innermost point of a bay, it suffered great damage from the wave. Some injury was done in the harbor of Reggio in this way and some at Villa San Giovanni. The chief sufferer from the tidal wave, however, was the little town of Pellaro. Pellaro was, like other Italian towns, constructed entirely of stone and mortar. It was built up solidly along one or two streets which were parallel to the shore. Immediately in the rear of the village were large lemon orchards. The earthquake shook the buildings down and about ten minutes afterward the tidal wave came in and leveled the heaps of ruins in a manner which amazed all who went over the ground later. It was almost impossible to discover the street lines or to identify the sites of the houses. The stones of which the buildings were constructed were carried hundreds of yards inland and scattered among the lemon trees. The entire site of the village was reduced to a dead level and one found it difficult to believe that a town of fifteen hundred population had ever occupied the place. About nine hundred of the people of Pellaro were killed by the earthquake or tidal wave and hundreds of bodies were carried out to sea by the receding waters.