Italy shakes often enough that most of us have a routine for the small ones: wait it out, check the pictures on the wall, get back to lunch. A strong quake is different. The forty-eight hours that follow are a blur of aftershocks, rumour and decisions taken too fast — and what you do in that window matters more than almost anything else. This checklist is for anyone who was there: residents, students, travellers who happened to be in the wrong piazza at the wrong time. Read it once now, while nothing is moving, so the sequence is already in your head if you ever need it.
The first ten minutes: protect yourself
During the shaking, drop, cover and hold. Get under a sturdy table, away from windows, tall cabinets and balconies. Do not run for the stairs while the ground is moving: in Italian quakes a large share of injuries comes from falling objects and from people caught on stairwells or under facades that give way. If you are in bed, stay there and protect your head with a pillow. If you are driving, pull over away from bridges, overpasses, trees and walls, keep the handbrake on and stay in the car.
When the shaking stops, put on proper shoes before you walk anywhere — broken glass is everywhere and it is the most common avoidable injury of the first hour. Pick up your phone, keys, ID and any medicine you take daily. Leave by the stairs, never the lift, and take a jacket. If you are high up and the stairwell is intact, go down and stay outside for a while.
Check people, then check the building
People first
Check yourself for bleeding you haven't noticed, then the people in the room, then the neighbours. Do not move someone who is seriously injured unless they are in immediate danger — call for the firefighters (115) or medical help and keep them warm and talking. If someone is unresponsive and not breathing and you know how to do CPR, start and send someone else to call 112.
Gas, electricity, water
If you smell gas or hear hissing, do not touch light switches and do not use your phone indoors. Open the windows, get everyone out, shut the gas meter from outside if you can do it safely and call 115 from a distance. Otherwise leave utilities alone unless there is visible damage or water near sockets; switching things on and off in a hurry is how sparks happen.
When to leave and stay out
New cracks in load-bearing walls, a stairwell that has shifted, a chimney or balcony that looks unstable, doors that no longer close, a smell of gas — any of these means out, and out means for good until someone qualified has looked at it. Aftershocks can bring down what the first quake weakened. If you must leave in a hurry, take:
- documents, some cash, your keys
- daily medication and a copy of the prescription
- phone, charger, power bank
- water, glasses, a warm layer
- pet, carrier and leash
Official information only, and very little of it
In the first hours rumours travel faster than facts. INGV publishes location and magnitude; the Dipartimento della Protezione Civile and your Comune publish instructions, road closures and collection points. Follow those and your regional civil protection page. Local radio still works when the network is jammed. Ignore forwarded voice notes and screenshots about "the big one coming tonight" — they circulate after every earthquake in Italy and they are never true. Nobody can predict an earthquake, and no widely available public system will warn you seconds before the shaking starts, so don't wait for your phone to tell you to move. And please don't call 112 to ask what happened: those lines have to stay free.
Communicate once, then stop
Networks survive but they congest. Send a message instead of calling. Choose one relative outside the area as the family contact, so everyone reports to a single number rather than twenty. Keep it to coordinates: who you are, where you are, whether you are hurt. Turn on battery saver, lower the brightness, charge in the car if you have one. Don't livestream. Say you're fine, then put the phone down and save the battery for the night.
The first night: water, warmth, medication
Assume you may sleep outside or in the car. Ask the Comune where the collection points and tents are — in Italy they go up quickly, and they are warmer and safer than a damaged house. Never run a car engine in a closed garage, and never bring a barbecue, a brazier or a generator into a tent, a car or a camper: carbon monoxide kills quietly, and it kills after earthquakes too. Candles are a bad idea in a place full of gas pipes and broken glass; use a torch.
If the authorities say the water isn't safe to drink, don't drink it — use bottled, and don't brush your teeth with the tap. Eat something, even if you don't feel like it. The adrenaline wears off on day two, and that is when people faint, snap at each other and make bad decisions.
If you are a traveller
Keep your passport on you. Tell your hotel or host where you are going, and contact your embassy or consulate, or your foreign ministry's emergency line, if you need help with documents or evacuation. If flights or trains are disrupted, check the operator's app rather than heading to the airport on a rumour. Keep every receipt for extra nights, transport and replacement medication for your travel insurer. Do not join rescue work unless you are asked and trained: the Protezione Civile coordinates volunteers, and unregistered helpers create problems rather than solving them. Ask at the collection point how you can actually be useful — water, blankets, translation, charging phones.
Day two: photos, paperwork, neighbours
Photograph everything before you move it — cracks, fallen plaster, broken furniture, water damage. Then call your insurer; deadlines are short and photos are the difference between a claim and an argument. Report the damage to your Comune, which compiles the surveys that lead to inspections and, later, to any support. Keep damaged items where they are until they have been seen, and keep receipts. For anything involving insurance, a tenancy or the structural assessment of a building, get proper advice from your insurer, a lawyer or a qualified technician — general rules never settle an individual case.
Expect aftershocks for days and weeks, some of them strong. Agree a simple "if it shakes again" plan with the people you are with, and check on elderly neighbours, people with disabilities and anyone living alone. That is often exactly what local civil protection asks residents to do, and it is the most useful thing most of us can offer in the first forty-eight hours.
A five-minute plan for tonight
Write down three things and keep them in your pocket: one out-of-area contact, the meeting point outside your building, and where your documents and medication are. Pack a small bag by the door. Walk your escape route once, in shoes. Then, if you can, eat something warm with someone — the second night is easier than the first, and it helps to spend it with other people.
Photo: Roger Brown / Pexels
