mud flows massacres. A Messina rains and killing at least 18 dead, 35 missing, about eighty wounded, 400 displaced persons are the figures, for some thrills, the official bulletin. But everyone knows that the budget of the disaster is expected to grow as a friend, relative, indicates what remains of a house and, like a rosary, say the names of who might be buried under rubble and mud of a tragedy "if not announced, imagined," said the head of Civil Protection Guido Bertolaso, pointing against the "neglect and illegal."
words immediately collected and re-launched by the Head of State, today visited Matera, who wanted to stress the need to allocate investments to "monumental works - Napolitano warned - but the territory." The sites of the massacre are called Giampilieri, Santo Stefano Briga, Zanclea ladder, the first two fractions of Messina, the country is a few miles beyond the municipal boundary, all along the Ionian coast. Here last night all hell broke loose. But two years ago, there were the "dress rehearsal" of a disaster that now all call a "tragedy foretold, the pastor of Giampilieri, Don John Scimone, the regional member of the Democratic Party Filippo Panarello, even He was born in the township. After half an hour of rain - started to fall firmly into the 17 - was already an emergency. Then he has almost stopped until 11 this morning, when the emergency had become a long tragedy.
They immediately understood the men of the rescue, forced to get to disaster sites, top with helicopters and patrol boats from the sea by the Captain's view of the impracticability of the roads turned into rivers of mud, where he rose from the roof of some car. The fury of the landslide has swept all that he has met men, houses, vehicles. The roofs have become the only refuge where men, women and children have also spent the entire night in the pouring rain, waving arms at the first sound of a few helicopter. The men of the civil protection, forest fire fighters arrived from several regions, dug by mechanical means all day, while only in the evening is open to bring some passage where the bulldozers were used, and where we can feel other stories and learn about other tragedies, after a day in which everyone has learned the name of Agnes Falgetano, 44, a postman from Naples who has been killed Brig. She had been buried, and his son of 12 years, Dario, just seconds before it was sent out from home by her mother to buy the candles, and is alive. As Giuseppe De Luca and her four year old son, survived because they were not at home, where they were the other daughter and wife. And everyone has seen Raffaella Maugeri crying and digging, because until just before dawn her two sons are 21 and 23 years, Leo and Cristian, buried under rubble, showed signs of life. Then he fell silent. A
Giampilieri, someone asks what happened to the security plan, 11 million of investments made after the landslide of 25 October two years ago. Of that money was spent only € 45 000 for a terrace. A site should have been open next Monday, too late. From what remains of Giampilieri, looking up toward the hill, one can see the houses in the small village of Molino, and even more there Altalia. But they are places where can only be reached by climbing, because the roads are gone. Just as the great links are broken: the A18 Messina-Catania, reopened to fatigue after 24 hours, will serve only for relief. State Road 114 is covered by mud, and below there are still cars.
PASTOR Giampilieri, disaster waiting to happen - He repeated what had happened two years ago when, just for a miracle, there were no deaths. Talk of 'disaster waiting to happen''Father John Scimone, pastor of Giampilieri, the fraction of the town of Messina was devastated by a storm that killed 14 people. "This time - he explains - the rain lasted longer and was more violent and now we count the victims." "In two years - still - no one has taken action despite the previous flood was more of a signal. The hills are no trees - partly destroyed by fire, partially cut to build - have not been built retaining walls. All this means that a most violent rain is coming down the landslides. "Don Scimone, who lives in the center of Messina, has not yet managed to reach the village." The road - he said - is frozen. The parishioners tell me of dramatic scenes: ruined houses, people under the rubble, mud flows.
FALLEN IN RAIN 230 MM 3 / 4 HOURS - At least a dozen people injured and already admitted to hospitals in the province of Messina, after The wave of storms that hit eastern Sicily. A number that is expected to rise as there are municipalities and villages that have not yet been reached because of landslides and mudflows. "The situation is heavy - said the deputy head of the Civil Protection Department, Bernardo De Bernardinis - in some areas have also fallen 220/230 millimeters of rain in three to four hours." De Bernardinis pointed out that since yesterday evening, was intensified when the weather warning issued in the afternoon, the Department has remained in contact with the prefectures of Messina, Catania and Palermo on the night and a team of experts has reached the Department of operations center in the prefecture in Messina, to coordinate dispatching help from other parts of Sicily and other regions. The most difficult situations, the Department stated, are those of the ladder - where the injured were taken away by a patrol boat of the Coast Guard because the univocal way to get to the town was by sea - and Giampilieri Molino. In the latter town there were several landslides and also an explosion of LPG that caused crashes. Still isolated, however, Brig, because emergency vehicles were unable to get space between the mudslides.
Source (Ansa)
