On the rubble left by the mud in Casamicciola, in front of gutted houses, in the deathly silence, the howling of the dogs left without an owner resembles the crying of someone who has lost a friend. They wander around the area, as if looking for someone. They too are victims of the tragedy. Someone will have to take care of them, in these hours in which the priority is the search for the missing and the accommodation of the displaced. The dog, experts explain, howls when it sees a friend walking away.
After all, there is a part of this story that sees the animals as protagonists. Lisa Mocciaro, the illustrator of children’s books who was trapped yesterday in her home on the third floor and who hosted some of the residents on the lower floors submerged in mud, recalls the moments when the first booms were heard, terrible premonitory signals of the imminent catastrophe.
“The animals – he explains – were agitated but nobody barked among the dogs. I think they just wanted to find an escape route. In the previous days, when there was a windstorm, the dogs howled and the cats meowed a lot. The chirping of the birds was continuous Instead, from midnight to three, when the landslide began the other night, an unreal silence fell”.
