«As a man of the state I have to stick to what the sentence is. As a citizen, I say that it is an unjust sentence, which cannot be shared and cannot be imposed on a mayor.” With these words the mayor of Civita, Alessandro Tocci, commented on the decision of the Court of Castrovillari which, eight years after the tragedy of the Raganello gorges, sentenced him to 4 years and one month in prison. The tour guide Giovanni Vangieri was also sentenced to 3 years and 5 months. Both were charged with manslaughter and failure to perform official duties.
The acquittals and the tragedy of 2018
However, the mayors of San Lorenzo Bellizzi, Francavilla Marittima and Cerchiara di Calabria were acquitted, respectively Antonio Cersosimo, Franco Bettarini and Antonio Carlomagno, accused of omission of official documents, as well as Marco Massaro, belonging to a tourist company.
The tragedy occurred on 20 August 2018 in the Raganello gorges, in the Civita area, one of the most popular natural areas of the Cosentino area for hikers and rafting enthusiasts. That day, marked by a yellow alert, violent storms upstream caused the stream to suddenly swell.
The water, channeling itself into the narrow gorges, overwhelmed a group of hikers, causing the death of ten people, including the guide Antonio De Rasis, 32 years old, already involved in the rescue efforts of the Rigopiano hotel in 2017.
The words of Mayor Tocci
According to the Court, the mayor of Civita could have intervened preventively to avoid the tragedy. A reconstruction that Tocci harshly contests, especially on the issue of the predictability of the event.
«An engineer of mine said words that have remained with me: “How could I stop the water coming from another municipality, with my hands?”», declared the mayor after reading the device.
Tocci then added: «I have a clear conscience. I wouldn’t like to compare myself to the Tortora affair, however, for a second, I feel like the Tortora of Italian mayors, left alone, full of responsibility.”