"Today my heart sank too. That house was our home, we wanted it exactly that way, and I had drawn up the plans." This is how architect Roberto Palumbo, owner of the three-story building that collapsed yesterday into the Niscemi cliff , spoke to Corriere della Sera about one of the houses that symbolized the landslide.
"Our life was there," Palumbo recalls, "my children's life, my wife's life. Now she's gone. A big piece of our world is gone . Luckily, we managed to recover the most important things: the dog, the cars, the photos, the letters, the paintings. Not the furniture, but that can be bought back."
It was built in 1974 with earthquake-proof criteria, designed by him. "In fact," the architect explains, "it resisted almost against the laws of gravity, until this morning (yesterday, ed.). But it was technically impossible for it to remain standing." No illegal construction. "It was built with a regular building permit , like the others nearby that are still standing, where cousins lived. They are the same because I built them all. They were designed to be architecturally and engineeringly indestructible."
Palumbo is 76 years old and has lived in this house for over half a century. His children, aged 51 and 46, were born there. The architect calls it a "disaster waiting to happen" because, he observes, "ever since the 1997 landslide, it was known that it would happen if nothing had been done."
"But in Sicily, there's bad practice," he adds. "I'll cheat today, I'll cheat tomorrow, and then we'll talk about it, because no one will be punished anyway. But this time it has to be different. The damned ones must pay for it. The houses in the historic center are all in order; there was no illegal construction, only negligence, arrogance, and delinquency on the part of the competent authorities ."
He and his fellow technicians have been making requests since 1997, he says. "We've asked for the demolition of abandoned houses, the consolidation of the hillside, drainage work to allow water to flow away, and the lightening of the subsoil by planting tall trees instead of pouring concrete. Nothing has been done, and these are the consequences ." In Niscemi, they're talking about a new town, but he has no doubts: "I'll stay. I was born here, I raised my children, and I built our house, which had a large garden."
(Unioneonline)