Historic landslide wakes up in Molise, A14 and railway line closed

The reawakening of a historic landslide in Petacciato, in the province of Campobasso, has led to the temporary closure of the A14 motorway, in the section between Vasto south and Termoli in both directions, and the Bari-Pescara railway line, interrupted between Termoli and Montenero di Bisaccia. The closure of the motorway, as a precautionary measure, was triggered by the activation of the monitoring system installed at the Petacciato landslide front. The measures created major traffic disruptions in Molise. Meanwhile, as a precautionary measure, about sixty people were evacuated from their homes in Petacciato.

"The situation is very complex and will take a few weeks if not a few months". This was stated by Fabio Ciciliano, head of theCivil Protection department, after the meeting of the Operational Committee convened following the reactivation of the landslide near Petacciato, in Molise. "If we expect a restoration in 5-7 days" of the A14 motorway and the railway line "we are off track. We are talking about a landslide front 4 kilometres long and the railway line passes through it. So it is obvious that until it stops, it will not be possible to do any kind of infrastructure restoration. The timeframe will be very long'.

According to Ansa, fractures have formed on the motorway. Inspections are in progress to ascertain the extent of them. On the affected section, traffic is blocked in both directions, with queues up to several kilometres long. There are also heavy inconveniences for travellers heading to the north of Italia along the Adriatic railway ridge, with dozens of passengers waiting in the Termoli station. The collapse of the bridge over the Trigno river due to last week's bad weather and the revival of the historic Petacciato landslide on Tuesday 7 April have practically blocked circulation on the State Highway 16 Adriatica, the A14 motorway and the railway line. "We are faced with a situation that effectively divides the country in two," said the president of the Molise Region, Francesco Roberti, at the end of his visit to the landslide.

The reactivation of the landslide seems to be connected to the wave of bad weather that has affected the Molise coastline in recent days and caused the collapse of the bridge over the Trigno river, on the border between Abruzzo and Molise. The 53-year-old man who was on the bridge at the time of the collapse is still missing.

The Petacciato landslide front is considered one of the largest in Europe. In March 2015, a landslide produced a very deep fracture: the asphalt broke causing a difference in height of at least fifteen centimetres and producing a step. According to technicians from the Molise region, at the root of the phenomenon is a deep, water-saturated fault that runs through the area's subsoil: a clayey mass sliding over less stable layers, fed by underground water flows.