The Orcolat: Pink Floyd, the Ogre, and the Real Voice of the Quake

The earthquake in Northern Italy happened on May 6, 1976, at exactly 9 PM. Later major aftershocks occurred on the 11th and 15th of September.

I was there and will always remember.

Not at the epicenter, but certainly well within the range where the earthquake was felt. But first a little history on the quake.

To date, it ranks as the fifth largest earthquake to shake Italy and measured 6.5 on the Richter Scale. Initially it was believed that the epicenter of the quake was in the area of Monte San Simeone, but later it was pinpointed to an area between Gemona and Artegna, in the midst of a mountain called Monte Chiampon.

The Earthquake of 1976 came to be known as “Orcolat” by the local Friulian people. Orcolat is a word in dialect that combines “orco” (ogre) with a denigrating suffix (“lat” or “laccio”) — in other words, a bad ogre. In local folklore, the Orcolat was the cause of all earthquakes in the mountainous Carnia region of Northeast Italy.

Here is one version of the Orcolat story:

Here is another version of the Orcolat legend, which I much prefer:

That evening in May, seventy-seven Italian communities were affected to a greater or lesser degree, with a total of 990 dead and 45,000 made homeless.

Aftershocks continued in the area, with moving epicenters, until 1979. The strongest of these occurred on September 15, 1976, at 11:21 in the morning, was centered in Gemona del Friuli and measured 6.0 on the Richter scale.

I vividly remember that one too. It was only slightly weaker than the original quake.

Much highly technical research and investigation has been done over the years to isolate the causes of the quake, but that is a much longer and different story than the one I wish to tell.

Suffice to say that it was frightening.

There are many individual stories from the quake, but one is absolutely extraordinary, especially for the time when there were no cell phones or easy ways to visually or aurally memorialize an event.

In September of 1975 the progressive rock band Pink Floyd released an album entitled Wish You Were Here, and one of the tracks was the much loved song “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”.

Eight months after the release of the album, a local Udine teenager named Mario Garlatti who had just turned 18 (some earlier reports said he was 13 years old and lived in Tricesimo, but that is incorrect) had received a wonderful birthday present — a Philips cassette recorder with a built-in microphone; this would turn out to be a very important detail. Mario was anxious to re-record this new album from vinyl to a cassette tape. His record player was plugged into the outlet, and his cassette recorder was working on its battery power.

The family was finishing up dinner just around 9PM, the usual time in Italy back then. His parents were there, sitting around the dining table, along with his sister Anna (21 years old), her husband Gianpiero and their two children named Francesca (age 2) and Carlo (age 1).

The evening was so warm and pleasant that the windows were all wide open and Mario recalled that dogs had been barking incessantly. Mario’s mother and sister were laughing and making funny sounds at one of the babies. His father and brother-in-law were seated comfortably, loudly commenting about the soccer game.

Little did Mario know that he was about to record one of the most important tracks in the history of seismology. He was about to unwittingly memorialize the sound of the Orcolat.

In an interview (loosely translated and abridged) conducted some 38 years later Mario recalled:

“Right after dinner I was intent on transferring a Pink Floyd album from vinyl to cassette. I was doing a professional recording, having connected my Philips recorder directly into the record player by means of an audio jack. I loved Pink Floyd and wanted to create a recording with the best fidelity. Just a few seconds prior to 9 PM I felt a bump that made an object on my wall swing. I ran to the kitchen to ask my mother if she had noticed anything. I hadn’t yet reached her when the disaster struck. It was a large and lengthy quake; it made the floors and the walls move – they seemed to speak. It was a sinister sound that I will never forget. The house seemed to be screaming.”

The main earthquake struck at 12 seconds past nine o’clock and the electricity was lost immediately. Everything was dark. But, since the cassette player was battery operated, it continued to function in recording mode. However that is not all.

The force of the quake actually disconnected the jack, activating the external microphone and enabling the recording of the sound of the earthquake. What happened was that the record player stopped because of the loss of electricity, and the sound now being recorded were that of the player’s needle skidding across the album followed by the rest of the ambient noise. There was a distinct and unforgettable rumble.

Mario said it was utterly frightening.

I know exactly what he meant.

Here is the fateful recording (only a part of it). You don’t need to understand Italian or Friulian dialect to experience it.

I will return to Mario’s incredible story, but for a moment I will relate my personal experience.

As already mentioned, the evening was glorious. Warm, with a light breeze. The perfect evening for a leisurely stroll and a stop at the local bar for an after-dinner drink.

At the time my parents and I were living in Treviso, in the Veneto province, just adjacent to Friuli, on the top floor of a five-story building in the centre of the city. My mother was tired and preferred to stay indoors, so my father and I went out into the night.

We walked around for a short time and then ended up at a local bar-café that had a lovely balcony overlooking the falls of the Sile River. We had ordered some after dinner liqueur and were seated on the balcony, talking of inconsequential matters. The balcony floor was made of roughly surfaced flagstones. My chair was unevenly placed, with one of the four legs not quite touching the floor.

Just prior to 9 PM, just as Mario noted, something happened. I felt the fourth leg of the chair meet with the floor and the other three legs move up. It was a slight movement and I initially thought that some heavy vehicle had gone over the bridge at the falls, causing a strong vibration.

I looked around, saw nothing out of place, and asked my father if he felt something. No, he had not.

Then it hit. I cannot describe the feeling, just as Mario says — only those who have experienced it can understand. There was a distinct and unforgettable rumble. The world seemed to vibrate and roll, with one noticeable large tilt. The lights went out.

It had been such a pretty evening, and the balcony was filled with young couples romantically chatting together. As soon as the quake hit, it seemed that all the men (including my father) ran for the exits and all the women remained sitting stunned at the tables. Then, almost as one, the men seemed to realize they had abandoned their partners, and returned from the street, back through the building to the balcony.

In the meantime, I had been watching the overhead lights swaying violently (streetlights were hung across overhead cables and not on light poles as is typical elsewhere). I grabbed my purse, fished out some money and put some cash in the hand of a stunned waiter who was also staring at the lights pirouetting overhead.

My father and I then remembered my mother at home alone on the fifth floor. We ran along the river to the apartment, passing an astonishing number of rats on the street that had emerged from the river and likely the sewers too. We expected to have to climb the stairs to the building and so find my mother huddled somewhere inside. But no; we found her clad in an elegant bathrobe, clutching her purse, and consoling the female neighbours.

Other than a few light cracks in the walls and ceilings,fine dust everywhere and the pictures on the walls now hanging askew, all was fine. No power, of course, but we did have battery run radios and gradually, over the course of the night, confusing reports emerged. It was not until sometime the next day that we began to learn what had happened, where the epicenter was, and how the death counts began to climb.

Meanwhile, sometime in the night, despite several aftershocks that sent us running down the stairs to the streets, we decided to go to bed. I went to open the medicine cabinet in the bathroom for toothpaste and everything fell out, since the contents had shifted during the quake. Big clatter, me screaming, my parents running to see what had happened. A small matter in the greater scheme of things, but it illustrates the level of panic lurking just beneath the surface of our minds.

What does a big earthquake feel like?

Everyone knows the feeling you get in your belly when they are given unexpected bad news — your tumour is malignant, there was an accident, your loved one’s illness is inoperable — or when you are caught red-handed doing something you know is wrong.

Imagine that feeling suffusing your entire body and combine that with an utter loss of control. That is what it feels like.

For months I lived in constant fear of aftershocks. The most disconcerting ones would happen at night. I had packed a small backpack containing things I wanted to save. I don’t remember now all the items, but it did contain some photographs, letters, a little family jewelry (one gold ring that was later stolen in a break-in) and, of course, a few books. I carried that bag down the stairs so many times in the night when an aftershock would rock the building.

Returning to Mario’s story (again, loosely translated and abridged):

"That evening a family friend loaned us a pup-tent and we went to sleep near Bearzi. My parents decided to sleep in the car. After two days we asked the local authorities for permission to re-enter our home and gather Whenever I hear Pink Floyd music, I am reminded of the earthquake; I cannot not think of it. That particular song, for me, feels almost as though I composed it, as it became such an integral part of my life. I have since attended many Pink Floyd concerts, even the one held in Udine in 1994. Incredibly, in every concert I attended, the first music played is that of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”. 

Mario went on to say that "Whenever I hear Pink Floyd music, I am reminded of the earthquake; I cannot not think of it. That particular song, for me, feels almost as though I composed it, as it became such an integral part of my life. I have since attended many Pink Floyd concerts, even the one held in Udine in 1994. Incredibly, in every concert I attended, the first music played is that of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”",

At the time of the interview (2014), Mario was teaching information technology in Udine. He does not enjoy discussing the Orcolat experience with his students, even when earthquake evacuation drills happen. He commented that “I try to explain the importance of sheltering under their desks — but then they laugh”.