Yahoo – AFP,
Ella IDE, August 23, 2017
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| The Ischia quake measured just 4.0 Magnitude -- on the seismic scale, a modest event. Yet houses collapsed and two people died. Now experts are pointing the finger at Italy's chronic problem of illegal construction (AFP Photo/Handout) |
Rome (AFP)
- As Italy reels from another earthquake, experts warned Wednesday that
widespread illegal construction is putting millions across the country at risk
of being killed.
The tremor
that shook the island of Ischia on Monday, toppling houses and killing two
women, has sparked much soul-searching in a country with a weakness for
rule-breaking -- particularly when it comes to building or renovating houses.
Geologists
insisted that the relatively minor 4.0-magnitude quake should not have killed
anyone and the civil protection agency laid the blame on the "many
structures built with shoddy and illegal materials" on the island.
Residents
there have put in 28,000 requests for amnesties for infringement of building
regulations in the last 30 years.
Attempts by
the council to tear down illegal constructions have sparked fury, with locals
clashing with riot police.
The same
battle is waged daily across Italy -- predominantly in the poorer south, the
playground of Italy's mafias.
The mayor
of Licata in Sicily was ousted this month by councillors infuriated by his
campaign against illegal housing.
Italy's
national statistic institute (ISTAT) warned last year of a "decisive rise
in the level of illegality" in construction, involving nearly 20 new
buildings in every 100. That number rose to 60 in every 100 in some regions in
the south.
The scale
"has no equal in other advanced economies," it said.
Worse,
buildings allegedly restored under strict anti-seismic norms collapsed in
quakes last year, including schools.
And while
some buildings at risk due to poor-quality materials or unlicensed extensions
are subject to demolition orders, only around 10 percent of them are carried
out.
Corruption, incompetence
The worst
offender is the Calabria region, followed by Sicily and the Basilicata in the
instep of boot-shaped Italy.
But it is
Campania -- encompassing Naples and Ischia island -- which is dubbed the
"Russian Roulette of Italy" by experts because of its deadly mix of
illegal houses, a high-density population and the active volcano Vesuvius.
There are
over 4,500 schools, 259 hospitals and nearly 900,000 buildings in the
highest-risk areas of the region.
"For
at least the last 20 years the scientific community has been explaining the
problem to the institutions, above all pushing for prevention measures,"
said Stefano Carlino, researcher at the national geographic institute in
Naples.
"They
are expensive of course, but also fundamental. Unfortunately the issue has not
been given the attention it needs," he said.
Geologist
Mario Tozzi warns Vesuvius is nothing compared to the activity seen at the
nearby volcanic Phlegraean Fields over the last few years, including a rise in
the ground-level of 25 centimetres (inches), tremors and ever-hotter gases.
"The
Phlegraean Fields is a supervolcano made up of some 30 craters -- gaily
occupied today by hippodromes and hospitals -- the eruption of which would
spark the permanent exodus of half a million people," he said.
And how to
forget Marsili, the undersea volcano south of Naples which is "70
kilometres (43.5 miles) long and 3,000 metres tall (10,000 feet), and just off
the Calabrian coast", where an eruption could trigger a tsunami as well as
devastate cities and towns.
As Italy
marks the anniversary of a 2016 quake in central Italy that killed 299 people,
Tozzi insisted it was not nature that buries children alive in rubble but
"corruption, political incompetence and our incapability to learn from
history".
And sometimes
not even a tremor is needed to topple buildings: eight people died in July when
an apartment block collapsed near Naples, killing among others the municipal
architect in charge of building security checks in the area.
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