Maxi landslide in Niscemi: homes in red zone towards relocation

the landslide stopped in front of a cross. This is told by a photo of what is happening in Niscemi, in the province of Caltanissetta. But there is no telling how much longer that cross, imagined inside a votive garden, can remain there to stop the earth from collapsing. All around, the ground sinks, houses crumble, cement skeletons and walls built with tuff ashlars remain in the air. The landslide was there and sleeping: it has been talked about for at least thirty years. The residents of Niscemi denounce decades of institutional inertia in preventing the landslide risk. The town stands on an unstable subsoil of clays and chalks, affected by landslides documented since the eighteenth century and already reactivated in 1997. The phenomenon has reappeared in the same neighbourhoods, once again mistaken for an earthquake. For the citizens, nothing has changed between the two landslides.

The landslide is now there and there are already 1,600 evacuees as the town slides towards the precipice. Niscemi is known for its violet artichoke, but it lives off a larger and more structured agriculture: today the landslide puts at risk not only houses, but also an entire economic system. 'Geologists say there is no comparison in all of Europe,' says Don Giuseppe Cafà, parish priest of the Sacred Heart Church. 'There has never been a phenomenon like this. The landslide front extends for about four kilometres, in some places reaching a depth of 50 metres. A canyon has been created, in the true sense of the word'. People have been leaving for days and a red zone has been set up in the entire area bordering the landslide, extending 150 metres from the beginning of the so-called 'detachment niche'.

It is a devastating and desolate picture that faced the head of the Gela public prosecutor's office, Salvatore Vella, who made an inspection yesterday. But above all those who are called upon to find a solution to help the evacuees, to imagine interventions, to plan for the future. These include the head of the National Civil Defence, Fabio Ciciliano, who yesterday attended a meeting at the Municipal Operations Centre with the President of the Sicilian Region, Renato Schifani, the Director General of the Regional Civil Defence, Salvo Cocina, the Prefect of Caltanissetta, Donatella Licia Messina, and, of course, the Mayor of Niscemi, Massimiliano Conti. "The whole hill is descending towards the Gela plain. The houses facing the crown of the landslide can no longer be inhabited and therefore it is necessary to reason about a definitive relocation for those families,' Ciciliano said. There must be a safety belt. Any other consideration is premature. It must be communicated to everyone that the houses that are on the verge and that appear to be intact cannot be reached even by the fire brigade in order to remove the belongings of these homes. This must be made clear".There are those who will have to leave their homes forever, and there are those who will have to leave the property they used for work. "With regard to the issue of those who will lose their homes, we are taking it upon ourselves," explained the Sicilian governor, appointed by the government as commissioner for the Harry emergency, "to implement a project programme of relocation, at public expense of course, in new housing and transfers to existing housing, but in any case there is a plan to give guarantees to all those who will not be able to return to their homes that they will be able to have a new home. This is the Region's commitment'.

For those displaced by the Niscemi landslide, contributions from the State's Cas (Contributo di autonoma sistemazione) fund are on the way: 400 euro per family plus 100 euro for each component, up to a maximum of 900 euro per month per nucleus for a year. The procedure, according to Ansa, which reported the news, has already been activated in the presence of the eviction order and should be completed within a few days: the contribution of autonomous accommodation is intended for those who had to leave their homes. This is as far as the immediate situation is concerned.

Here, yesterday, the secretary of the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, also arrived: 'We ask that the situation in Niscemi be treated in its specificity because it is a delicate situation, the landslide is active,' she said. 'We need all the best expertise to understand how to make this situation safe. Our closeness goes out to all the territories affected by Cyclone Harry: the Sicilians, the Calabrians, the Sardinians. There are two billion in damages and the 100 million allocated by the government is insufficient. We have proposed to divert a billion, which had been put on the Strait Bridge project and which cannot be used in 2026 because of the Court of Auditors' block, to give answers to the affected territories'.