Italy: at least eight dead after an avalanche on the island of Ischia

At least eight people have died in a landslide caused by heavy rain on the Italian island of Ischia, Italian media reported on Saturday.

“Eight confirmed dead after the Ischia landslideThis was stated by Matteo Salvini, who is also deputy premier, quoted by the Agi agency and by the Italian newspaper The Republic.

The minister argued that “there are rescuers who work in difficult conditions. They take care of themselves and protect themselves”.

The fierce mudslide is estimated to have left at least 30 families trapped in their homes without water or electricity in the Via Celario area of ​​Casamicciola on Ischia.

The road leading to their homes, which is via Santa Bárbara, is impassable due to the mud, boulders and debris blocking it, so they are trying to clear it with various earthmoving machines and water pumps. .

Previously the fire brigade had reported that in Casamicciola Terme “a landslide has engulfed a house and possible missing persons are being searched”.

A couple and their newborn son, who lived near where the avalanche originated, are among the people they are trying to find, according to this preliminary information.

Mud swept several cars, dragging at least one into the sea, but firefighters managed to save two people from the vehicle, the news agency said. AFP extension.

The authorities have urged the inhabitants of Ischia, located off the coast of Naples, to remain in their homes so as not to hinder the rescue efforts.

In Casamicciola Terme there was an earthquake in 2017 in which two people died.

What is the island of Ischia like?

Ischia, like Capri or Procida, is part of what are known as the Flegrean Islands, an archipelago to which countless tourists make a pilgrimage every year to enjoy its natural beauty.

In Ischia, known internationally for its precious thermal waters, nearly 20,000 people live registered and distributed in its six municipalities, including the one that gives its name to the island, Forio, Barano d’Ischia, Casamicciola Terme, Lacco Ameno and Serrata Fondana.

From a geological point of view, it consists of numerous volcanoes that rise up to 900 meters from the bottom of the Tyrrhenian Sea, although the last eruption recorded in the place dates back to the remote year 1302.

Until then, the accumulation of volcanic material created this island of 46 square kilometers and which has its highest point at the top of Mount Epomeo, 787 meters above sea level.

Yesterday evening a thunderstorm – predicted by meteorologists – hit the place which unloaded up to 120 millimeters of rain and caused disaster especially in Casamicciola, where around 8,000 people live.

The water caused the collapse of a promontory that buried many houses, destroyed buildings, carried rocks and uprooted trees and carried cars from the road to the sea.

This was stated on public television by the president of the Italian Society of Environmental Geology, Antonello Fiore rai that the landslide occurred after water penetrated and broke through the mountain after a prolonged dry spell.

This was helped by the fact that the island is made up of “fundamentally unstable materials”. In this way, he indicated, landslides occurred frequently throughout the last century, up to fifteen times, the last one in 2009, when a girl died and twenty people were injured, always in Casamicciola Terme.

Another of the phenomena that the inhabitants of this place experience with a certain frequency are earthquakes, the result of the volcanic origin of the place (the Gulf of Naples is crowned by Vesuvius, now dormant but lethal in the past, as demonstrated by the case of Pompeii ) . .

After the new tragedy, many remember the dramatic earthquake that Casamicciola suffered in 1883, which caused more than 2,200 deaths, but the last one dates back to 2017, causing two deaths and forty injuries.