Rains in Italy kill 22
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from May 1998.
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Rivers of mud burst into town centres, tearing apart houses and bridges, swallowing cars and sending panicked residents fleeing in the heavily populated area dotted with small and mid-size towns.
Approximately 1,000 people were left homeless throughout the region from Naples to Salerno, about 60 kilometres to the southeast (37 miles), Italy's civil protection agency said.
In Sarno, a town of about 2,000 residents, the mud burst through the first floor of the "Villa Malta" hospital, sweeping away part of a staircase. The bodies of two doctors, a nurse, a doorman and a patient were pulled out from under the mix of rubble and mud, Italian news reports said.
A 34-year-old woman and her three children, aged 13, 9 and 7 were killed when a torrent of mud swept by their home in nearby Bracigliano, dragging the four downstream for nearly a kilometre (620 yards). The children's father managed to save himself by climbing onto the roof of his home, the reports said.
Naples Archbishop Michele Giordano expressed his "deepest condolences and pain" for the victims. Italy's Interior Minister Giorgio Napolitano headed to the disaster area Wednesday afternoon.
Many residents in the Naples-Salerno region spent Tuesday night on roof tops or on the highest floors of apartment buildings to avoid the flow of mud. Some trapped in their homes waved white handkerchiefs from windows to attract rescue workers, who lowered themselves from helicopters and plucked stranded residents off the building tops.
Rescue workers used cranes and trucks to help pull out some 160 people trapped under meter(yard)high mounds of mud.
One young boy was saved just moments before a new flow of mud gushed down the road where he stood trapped, police said.
Piles of mud and boulders covered railroad tracks and roads, bringing circulation to a standstill. Power and telephone lines were down in much of the area.
Rain had stopped by mid-day Wednesday and meteorologists said the weather would continue to improve. Geology experts were determining whether more slides were likely.
Many residents complained that rescue efforts were too slow and uncoordinated.
"We can't permit a territory to break apart like this," said Archbishop Giordano. "We need immediate intervention, but also a long term project for the area, and the government needs to act."
Chief of Italy's civil protection agency, Andrea Todisco, said many homes in the area had been illegally built too close to rivers or in areas prone to landslides, aggravating the damage.
