Niscemi, tarpaulin on the new sixty meter crack: controversy in the city

The vast tarpaulin placed in Niscemi (Cl) on the recent crack of about sixty meters that opened in the area of ​​Via Ustica, along the front of the landslide that devastated the town last January, is fueling controversy. Mayor Massimiliano Conti speaks of "a temporary measure to prevent rainwater infiltration, indicated in the report by University of Florence professor Nicola Casagli".

Citizens were critical, expressing concern and bitterness on social channels. "They waited eight months and the first rains that had already occurred to put up the tarpaulins," writes one user. "The landslide and the rains don't wait, action should have been taken immediately", comments another.

Already last February, the then secretary of the Basin Authority, in a note addressed, among others, to the regional Civil Protection Department and the Municipality of Niscemi, had underlined "the need for immediate interventions to mitigate the hydrogeological vulnerability of the front crowning the landslide body".

"In particular - he explained - the need was identified for the placement of a superficial gutter channel, aimed at intercepting the rainwater coming from the inhabited centre" which flows freely "on the crown of the landslide body, accelerating its disintegration".

"This indication, already provided during the inspections, constitutes an action to mitigate the erosive phenomenon of the ridge, pending the exhaustion of the movement and its stabilisation, during the rainy season and also to safeguard the monitoring instrumentation", he concluded.

During the last visit to Niscemi, the national commissioner Fabio Ciciliano, who coordinates all operations and interventions in the landslide area, speaking of the recent crack, reported a movement of the earth which was however "under close observation". Words that did not reassure the residents: "Every rain triggers the fear that something could happen", they say.