Landslides in Cameroon and Italy kill 21, including two children and baby
Flood calamities expose weak infrastructure, bad planning and shoddy, illegal building practices
More than 20 people were killed at the weekend, including a newborn baby and two children, by two landslides, one in the central African country of Cameroon and the other on an Italian island.
In Cameroon’s capital Yaounde on Sunday, dozens of people were attending a funeral on a soccer pitch at the base of a 20-metre high soil embankment, when it collapsed on top of them.
At least 14 of the mourners were killed.
“We are carrying the corpses to the mortuary of the central hospital, while the search for other people, or corpses, is still ongoing,” Naseri Paul Bea, governor of Cameroon’s Centre region, told media at the scene.
Yaounde is one of the wettest cities in Africa and is made of dozens of steep, shack-lined hills. Heavy rains have triggered several devastating floods throughout the region this year, weakening infrastructure and displacing thousands.
On Saturday, at least seven people, including a newborn baby and two children, were killed on the southern Italian holiday island of Ischia, when a landslide caused by torrential rain devastated a small town.
Five people were still missing, Naples prefect Claudio Palomba told a news conference. Dozens of emergency workers rushed to the island as rescue divers searched the waters off the coast, he said.
A wave of mud, debris and stones broke away from the island’s highest mountain on Saturday afternoon and crashed down in and around town of Casamicciola Terme.
Photographs and aerial video showed buildings smashed by the landslide and several cars pushed into the sea by what one resident described as “a waterfall of water and mud.”
Italy’s new right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni held a cabinet meeting on Sunday and issued a decree aimed at providing swift help to people in need following the disaster, including some 230 people who were evacuated.
The decree earmarked an initial aid package of €2m (R35m) and envisaged a suspension of tax payments for residents until the end of the year.
Densely populated, Ischia is a volcanic island some 30km from Naples. It draws visitors to its thermal baths and picturesque coastline.
But many of its houses are built illegally, putting inhabitants at permanent risk from flooding and earthquakes — both of which have become moe frequent in the hilly island over the past years.
Italy’s civil protection agency head said 94% of Italian municipalities were at risk of flooding, landslides, earthquakes and coastal erosion.
He said Ischia was at greater risk because of the number of illegally built houses but other parts of Italy with fewer land planning violations were also vulnerable.