A landslide on the southern island of Ischia in Italy resulted in at least one death and a dozen unaccounted-for people on Sunday, November 27,2022 prompting the Italian government to proclaim a state of emergency.
Early Saturday morning, a tsunami of mud and debris struck the little town of Casamicciola Terme, swallowing at least one house and sweeping vehicles into the sea, according to local media and rescue services.
Following an emergency cabinet meeting when the state of emergency was declared, a first tranche of two million euros in relief funding was issued, according to Minister for Civil Protection Nello Musumeci.
While hundreds of volunteers and other people covered up to their knees in mud are frantically sweeping the town’s streets, more than 200 rescuers are still looking for a dozen persons who have gone missing.
With boulders scattered around, excavators worked to open up access to houses, cars, and shops amidst the wreckage of vehicles crushed by the mudslide, which includes buses and cars.
According to press reports, rescuers found the body of a 31-year-old woman.
“It’s a situation that hurts us, if only for the people who disappeared under the mountain. Here it’s an island and even if we don’t really know everyone, it’s almost that,” Salvatore Lorini, aged 45, told a reporter.
“The mountain came down, there was devastation of shops, cars, hotels and that was already happening nine years ago. Now I am cleaning my mother-in-law’s shop,” he said.
“Because nature is nature, there was an earthquake”. There was a lack of maintenance and prevention, which, according to Lorini, could have prevented the landslide and possibly saved lives.
States of emergency following earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or severe weather are nothing new for the Peninsula, off Naples.
Two people died in an earthquake that struck Casamicciola Terme, a spa resort with 8,000 winter residents on the verdant island of Ischia, close to Capri, in 2017.
At the end of the 19th century, a considerably stronger earthquake completely destroyed
Author- Roberta Appiah
