Illegal housing worsens flood toll
Devastating floods in Italy that saw an entire family killed when their home was engulfed in water triggered a bitter row on Monday over the country’s vast illegal housing problem.
Rain and wind continued to batter the north while a shellshocked Sicily prepared to bury its dead after a week of violent storms which claimed more than 30 lives.
Nine members of a single family, including children aged one, three and 15, drowned overnight on Saturday after a river burst its banks in the coastal town of Casteldaccia, submerging their rented villa in water and mud.
Survivor Giuseppe Giordano, 35, who had left the house on an errand with one of his children, lost his wife, two other children, his parents, brother, and sister, his nephew and the boy’s grandmother.
Little Rachele Giordana’s open coffin was being watched over by grieving family friends in a church in Palermo.
The one-year old will be buried along with her Mickey and Minnie Mouse toys.
A mass funeral for the family was set to take place in the city’s cathedral on Tuesday.
Italy’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, head of the far-right League, enraged many by blaming “armchair environmentalism” for the widespread devastation, which hit the Veneto region hardest.
Critics pointed instead to the scourge of illegal housing.
The villa in Sicily had been built too close to the river, violating safety norms, and the owners had been ordered to demolish it in 2008, but were in the process of appealing, Casteldaccia’s mayor said.
Out of every 100 new builds in Italy, almost 20 are illegal, according to the national statistics institute.
While unauthorised construction stands at 6.7% in the north, it rises to 19% in central Italy and shoots up to 47% in southern Italy.
In the Campania region, a jaw-dropping 64% of buildings are thrown up without planning permission.
Of the 16,500 or so subject to a demolition order between 2004 and 2018, only 496 were knocked down.
Casteldaccia’s former mayor, Fabio Spatafora, said cashstrapped councils cannot afford to deal with the problem.
“If the owner does not comply with the demolition order, the council is obliged to buy the property or knock it down, but often – as in the case of Casteldaccia – it doesn’t have the funds,” he said.
He rubbished the claim that demolitions would leave people homeless, saying many of the properties were holiday lets.
Stefano Ciagani, head of Italy’s environmentalist lobby Legambiente, said: “How many deaths and how many tragedies do there have to be before we realise that the only real public works needed in our country are those to make our territories safe?
“We’ve been saying it for 40 years. Houses [are being illegally] built on riverbeds, because in Italy there’s always an amnesty around the corner.”