(ANSA) - ROME, NOVEMBER 22 - For three days he remained under the rubble of the building where he lived, which collapsed following the earthquake that shook Irpinia on November 23, 1980.
And only thanks to the stubbornness and obstinacy of the firefighters, who never stopped digging, did he come out alive.
Now, 42 years later, the then-little boy and that fire crew have reunited.
The story was published on the social media channels of the Fire Brigade just on the eve of the 42nd anniversary of the 6.9 magnitude earthquake which caused almost 3 thousand victims.
The protagonists are called Toni, who is 53 today and on 23 November when the quake destroyed his house he was 11, and then Luigi, then department head, Giovanni R., foreman, Remo, Giovanni S., Fabrizio, Marco, Ettore and Roberto , the team of firefighters who left Verona to reach Irpinia.
"Every intervention carried out, from the apparently simplest to the most complex, leaves a trace in the memory of a firefighter. And some of these are profound, indelible" write the Vigili del Fuoco recalling that day when, from all over Italy, almost 4,300 firefighters were mobilized and 1,100 ways to try and save as many lives as possible.
Among the many teams was that of Verona: the 8 left in the late evening of 23 November and stopped in Padua, where they joined the regional mobile column which, after a full day's journey, reached Lioni, a small town in the province of Avellino almost on the border between Campania and Basilicata.
And it is here that, under the rubble of his house, Toni was saved after 3 days.
(HANDLE).