ROME: Italy reacted with shock and outrage at the chronic bureaucratic and planning failures laid bare after severe flooding hit the northwestern city of Genoa, killing one man and leaving the streets of the medieval port city buried in mud and debris.
“The mud of Genoa, shame of a country,” read the front page headline of Italy’s biggest daily newspaper Corriere della Sera yesterday after the flooding, which occurred less than three years after torrential floods in the same city killed seven people in 2011.
As heavy rain continued, civil protection authorities maintained a high alert until at least tomorrow but there were angry questions about how the city could be reduced to chaos, despite repeated warnings of a potential disaster.
Italy’s mountainous and unstable geography has always made the country vulnerable to natural disasters from floods to landslides and earthquakes. Genoa’s own position, between the sea and a ring of steep mountains, is particularly exposed to severe storms and flooding.
But administrative failures under successive governments, from unregulated building to poorly planned infrastructure and bureaucratic inertia have exacerbated the problems.
“What is really alarming is how little has been done in three years to make Genoa secure from another flooding disaster,” said Francesco Vincenzi, president of ANBI, a national association representing the organisations charged with overseeing flooding and water safety issues.
Governor Claudio Burlando estimated the damage to public infrastructure at some ¤200m ($252.52m) and as workers and volunteers began the cleanup, Franco Gabrielli, head of the civil protection authority, warned that the problems would persist over the weekend. “We are still in full emergency,” he said. Reuters
