Cyclone Harry splits Italy in two and once again the South pays the highest price. The Tyrrhenian Calabria of Cosentino yesterday transformed into a funnel of hardship and isolation. As usual, the Battipaglia-Reggio Calabria railway line, a strategic axis for the mobility of the South, which remains fragile and vulnerable to the force of nature, ends up under accusation. Not only due to coastal and sea erosion but this time also due to gusts of wind.
The suspension between Capo Bonifati and Cetraro
Rail traffic was suspended for several hours due to the debris – swept away by the lashes of the Mediterranean cyclone – which ended up on the tracks in the stretch between Capo Bonifati and Cetraro. But also further south in San Lucido where, however, the situation was less critical.
Traffic was thus interrupted at 6.15 am, effectively paralyzing the entire Tyrrhenian corridor. Only after 1pm did traffic resume, after a long phase of slowdowns and limitations that put travelers and commuters to the test.
Delays and cancellations
The toll for users was very heavy: delays of up to 160 minutes, chain cancellations and trains forced to stop at intermediate stations before reaching the final destination. High Speed, Intercity, Intercity Night and regional trains have undergone major rescheduling.
Several trains heading from Rome to Reggio Calabria stopped at the borders of the region, while those departing from the South remained blocked in Paola or Lamezia. Stations that have turned into forced termins. Some reschedulings were then skipped altogether due to the worsening of conditions also in the province of Messina, with repercussions on the entire railway system between Calabria and Sicily.
The “wind of Saint Francis”
But it’s not just Cyclone Harry. On the Tyrrhenian Sea of Cosenza, the well-known phenomenon of gusts of wind that come down from the mountains and channel themselves violently along the coast is called the “wind of San Francesco”, according to popular tradition. A wind that had also been studied scientifically by the young Walter Ventura, who died prematurely in 1989 in a road accident.
Gusts yesterday reached 100 kilometers per hour, hitting the coast for over 36 consecutive hours.
Damage and interventions on the territory
The firefighters were thus busy tirelessly, with dozens of interventions throughout the territory to guarantee assistance and safety to the population. In many municipalities, the wind caused the uprooting of trees, the fall of sliding gates which ended up in the street, the collapse of scaffolding – as in Viale dei Giardini, in the center of Paola – and damage to public buildings, including the Pizzini-Pisani school complex.
Glass shattered, frames torn off, antennas torn from roofs and objects thrown everywhere by the fury of the gusts. The situation at the port of Cetraro is also critical (furthermore, as Clelia Rovale points out, in Piazza San Marco, a centuries-old maritime pine was completely uprooted by the wind, while a second specimen appears dangerously unstable, bent on one side), while in Paola there was damage in an animal facility in the market area: the uncovered roof allowed several puppies to escape, recovered only after a long and complex search.
The fragility of infrastructure
But beyond the emergency, there remains the chronic fragility of the railway infrastructures of the South, incapable of withstanding the impact of meteorological events which can no longer be considered exceptional. And every suspension becomes isolation for Calabria.
The lines: reopenings and sections still closed
And today, «the Lamezia Terme Centrale-Catanzaro Lido and via Tropea lines will gradually reopen – we read in a note from FS –, while the Ionica, from Melito to Crotone, will remain closed to allow RFI technicians to carry out restoration work on the damaged infrastructure».