Chaos and disruption, confusion and fear. One of Europe's largest landslides, the one overlooking the Molise coast near Petacciato, has resurfaced after 11 years, wreaking havoc along the Adriatic coast . Part of the A14 motorway is closed as a precaution after a sensor alert, while the Pescara-Bari railway line operates intermittently, with trains canceled and stations overrun by thousands of passengers stranded for hours awaiting rescheduling.
"The situation ," explained Fabio Ciciliano , head of the Civil Protection Department, after the Operations Committee meeting in Rome, "is very complex and will take several weeks, if not months."
According to initial reports, the A14 roadway has suffered some damage, while the railway tracks have been deformed by around ten centimetres due to the landslide.
Just days after the wave of severe weather that had already brought Molise to its knees, with the collapse of the bridge over the Trigno River and one person still missing in the river, the region is facing yet another natural disaster. This time it's an old acquaintance, a historic landslide that has been active for over a century and has already caused numerous problems, even leading to the demolition of a dozen homes in 2015. Today, around lunchtime, the A14 monitoring systems sounded the alarm, prompting the immediate closure of the highway between Vasto Sud and Termoli, between Abruzzo and Molise. A few hours later, the decision was made to extend the closure to the stretch on the border with Puglia, between Poggio Imperiale and Vasto Sud heading north. These closures have inevitably led to repercussions and disruptions on inland roads, already heavily damaged by the severe weather.
(Unioneonline)
