“Niscemi is worse than Vajont”. This is not said by an environmental activist or an interested mayor, but by the head of the Civil Protection, Fabio Ciciliano. A comparison that weighs like a boulder: the landslide movement underway in the Sicilian municipality concerns approximately 350 million cubic meters of earth, compared to the 263 million of the Vajont disaster of 1963. “Almost one and a half times”, explained Ciciliano to Sky TG24, giving “just one figure” which however is enough to convey the size of the catastrophe: a landslide that does not stop, while the South deals with unprecedented devastation.
Yet, even in the face of numbers that evoke one of the greatest tragedies in republican history, the government’s line remains immutable: the Strait Bridge cannot be touched. Indeed, the tension in the majority rises precisely on this point, with Matteo Salvini reiterating his no to any hypothesis of reprogramming resources. The Bridge first of all.
The diplomatic version of the message arrives from Brussels. “The Bridge must be built”, says Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. Then, perhaps, “we can make some predictions”, but only after having quantified the damage and understood “how much is needed and where it is needed”. All the proposals are “useful”, assures Tajani, but the perimeter is clear: the 13.5 billion allocated to the Bridge remain a taboo, even while Sicily, Calabria and Sardinia are affected by bad weather.
The government, promises Tajani, is “extraordinarily mobilised”: the 100 million allocated are just a first step. The minister will be in the affected regions on Monday to meet with damaged businesses.
And then there is Europe: Civil Protection will have to prepare a report to access the EU Solidarity Fund. Brussels, Tajani recalls, “has always been generous”. In short, we are looking outwards, while the emergency is growing within the Italian borders.
The response from the opposition is very harsh. Giuseppe Conte speaks of “13 and a half billion wasted for a fallacious and failed project” and recalls the funds “stolen” in Sicily and Calabria. The M5s, claims the former prime minister, did its part with one million euros obtained from cutting parliamentarians’ salaries. “Now – he says – the government is responsible for making a clear, concrete and immediate choice”.
A crack also opens in the majority. Laura Castelli, president of South calls North, thanks Forza Italia and its spokesperson Raffaele Nevi, who admitted the obvious: if there is money that “temporarily cannot be spent on the Bridge”, it can be used for the emergency in Sicily. Common sense, according to Castelli. Not for Salvini, who continues to say no “out of mere whim”.
Meanwhile, in Sicily, the ARS has given the OK to the agenda which commits the regional government to moving FSC funds from the Bridge to the bad weather emergency: 32 votes, a split Schifani majority.
The most frontal attack comes from the Sicilian Democratic Party. For the regional secretary Anthony Barbagallo, Salvini can also come to Sicily, “but bring with him the billions stolen from the Sicilians to finance his ego and the forbidden and obsolete dream of the Bridge”. Here, says Barbagallo, “there are no infrastructures worthy of the name”, and what the minister is chasing is only “a scale model”. Silence, he concludes, would be the only decent posture in the face of devastation that no one – neither Schifani nor the former governor Musumeci – can pretend not to see. Meanwhile, the Niscemi landslide continues to move. More than Vajont. But the government’s priorities do not change and, at least for the moment, the Bridge is not being discussed.
And the Gela prosecutor’s office has already started working to verify any responsibilities. Today the first operational meeting. The chief prosecutor Salvatore Vella presided over it after the opening of an investigation against unknown persons for negligent disaster and damage followed by a landslide, currently against unknown persons. “We have taken stock to ascertain what should have been done and what was not done – prosecutor Vella told AGI – and we will have to ascertain whether any works were carried out in the area which contributed to causing the landslide”.
In 1997, another massive landslide occurred in Niscemi which caused the collapse of several houses and an eighteenth-century church, as well as the eviction of over 300 inhabitants. «It is too early – added the prosecutor – to say what has been done from ’97 to today. We want to ascertain whether this landslide could have been avoided. We will acquire the necessary cards soon. Various entities are involved. We will also carry out inspections in the areas affected by the landslide event.”
The pool is made up of the Gela prosecutor, two prosecutors, three university professors from the Geology faculty of Palermo, the judicial police of the Caltanissetta police station, the Niscemi police station and the SCO. Next week, the three professors from Palermo, two men and a woman, will be appointed consultants by the prosecutor’s office.