Outrage in Italy over 'shame' of Genoa flood chaos

By James Mackenzie
ROME Sun Oct 12, 2014 2:04pm EDT
ROME (Reuters) - 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 on Saturday 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 Monday
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 organizations charged with overseeing flooding and water safety issues.
Italy's deep economic crisis, which has seen public spending pared back to the bone in many areas,
has made handling unexpected disasters more difficult but deeper systemic weaknesses have also
been highlighted.
"The problem of water security in Italy isn't mainly to do with resources, it's about political will and
bureaucracy," Vincenzi said.
FULL EMERGENCY
Governor Claudio Burlando estimated the damage to public infrastructure at some 200 million euros
($252.52 million) 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 told a news conference. "The forecasts for the next few hours
offer no relief at all for tomorrow and Monday."
He admitted that authorities had failed
to predict the huge volume of rain
which fell in the space of a few hours.
Parts of the city saw 700 mm of rain
fall in 72 hours, not far short of the
average rainfall of an entire year.
But he criticized delays in reinforcing
the banks of the Bisagno river, the
biggest in Genoa, which burst its
swollen banks late on Thursday night
and said it was a "scandal" that 35
million euros set aside for the work
after the 2011 floods had not been
spent because of a legal dispute.
The archbishop of Genoa, Angelo Bagnasco, called for "timely and massive" action by government to
resolve the crisis and prevent similar disasters in future.
"Everyone knows what their responsibilities are," he said, his clothes spattered with mud after a tour
of affected areas.
"It's absurd and shameful that bureaucracy of any kind should be blocking funds which are
absolutely necessary for resolving these problems," he said.
(1 US dollar = 0.7920 euro)
(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Stephen Powell)
Link this
Share this
Digg this
Email
Print
Reprints