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The Italian Government declared a state of emergency this Sunday on the island of Ischia, off Naples (South), hit the day before by a large landslide caused by heavy rains, which resulted in seven deaths.
Faced with the damage, Italy triggers a new protocol. On Sunday, November 27, the Italian government declared a state of emergency for the island of Ischia. This island in the south of the country, in front of Naples, was hit on Saturday by a strong landslide, the balance of which increased to seven dead and five missing, according to the prefect of Naples.
“The number of deaths from the collapse in Casamicciola has risen to seven, while the missing are five,” said the prefect of Naples, Claudio Palomba, on Sunday night.
A state of emergency is often declared on the peninsula, after earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or bad weather. It provides for an accelerated procedure for the mobilization of funds and resources, including those for civil protection, for urgent interventions or the creation of reception structures.
At the site, more than 200 members of civil protection and police continued to search for the missing on Sunday, while hundreds of volunteers, up to their knees in mud, toiled cleaning the streets of the small town.
Remains of cars and buses crushed by the violence of the landslide and rocks are seen everywhere, in a ballet of bulldozers trying to free access to houses, cars and businesses.
Casamicciola Terme, a winter resort of 8,000 residents on the lush island of Ischia near Capri, suffered an earthquake in 2017 that killed two people. On the other hand, it had been completely destroyed by a much more powerful earthquake at the end of the 19th century.
“A Little Prevention” Would Have Saved Lives
“It is a situation that hurts us, because of the people who disappeared under the mountain. Here is an island and although not all of us really know each other, almost all of us, at least by sight,” said Salvatore Lorini, 45, a resident and native from Ischia.
“The mountain collapsed, there was a devastation of shops, cars, hotels, and it happened nine years ago. Now I am cleaning my mother-in-law’s workshop,” he explained.
This change was caused by a lack of maintenance and prevention “because nature is nature, there was an earthquake, but a little prevention” could have saved lives, according to Salvatore Lorini, who wanted a system similar to that of buoys to be established , which warns of the arrival of a tsunami, but which allows the population to be warned that the earth is moving.
A “devastating” urbanization due to “mass tourism”
“I must be honest, if I could, I would leave Casamicciola because now it is difficult for me to live there. Although I must say that my house survived the earthquake, the floods,” Iacono Maria, 64, confesses to AFP-TV, assuring that the recent events “broke his heart”.
“I am close to the population of the island of Ischia affected by a flood. I pray for the victims, for those who suffer and for all those who intervened in the rescue, ”said Pope Francis for his part after the Angelus prayer.
For Tommaso Moramarco, director of the Institute for Hydrogeological Research and Protection, quoted by the AGI agency, “in Ischia there is a development that has hit and devastated the entire territory.”
“When the island entered the period of mass tourism, the growth of the infrastructure was exponential, suffocating all the natural elements of the territory and covering everything with cement”, added the geologist Mario Tozzi in the pages of the newspaper ‘La Stampa’ and recalling the existence of tens of thousands of illegal constructions in Ischia.
With AFP and Reuters
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