The Balvano Disaster

Italy’s worst but little known train tragedy

One of several graphic images from the Balvano Disaster
shows the bodies of victims laid out on the station platform

The Italian railway network suffered its worst accident on this day in 1944 when more than 600 passengers died from carbon monoxide poisoning after a train stopped in a tunnel just outside the small town of Balvano, on the border of Basilicata and Campania about 90km (56 miles) east of Salerno.

Yet, despite the death toll being perhaps nine times that of the country’s worst peacetime rail disaster, few Italians were aware that it had happened until author and historian Gianluca Barneschi wrote a book about it in 2014.

Because the tragedy took place during the final stages of the Second World War, when much of southern Italy was a battleground between German and Allied forces, it resonated as a news story for only a short time, the victims essentially added to Italy’s overall count of civilian casualties during the conflict, which is put at more than 150,000.

However, there was no military involvement in the disaster, which was purely an accident, albeit one that was in part caused by the circumstances of the time.

Bodies were loaded on to trucks and taken
away to be buried in mass graves

Barneschi discovered details in classified documents at Britain’s National Archives office in Kew, London, and the story was picked up by an Italian television documentary maker.  Witnesses and survivors helped put together an account of what happened.

Although the train, which originated in Naples, consisted only of goods wagons, it was packed with civilians travelling to the countryside in search of food, with many in the heavily bombed urban areas around Naples almost at the point of starving because of shortages.

Official reports classed these passengers as stowaways, although some accounts suggest that it was so common at the time for civilians to board freight trains in large numbers that there was a black market in unofficial tickets, and that most would have paid a fare.

The train left Naples on the afternoon of 2 March. It travelled at a low speed and made frequent stops as the line followed the coastline of the Bay of Naples, a heavily populated area, passing through Ercolano, Torre del Greco and Torre Annunziata before going inland through Pompei, Nocera Inferiore and the historic town of Cava de’ Terreni, rejoining the coast near Salerno, en route to the city of Potenza in Basilicata.

Until Salerno, the train had been pulled by an electric locomotive, but at that point the electrified line ran out. This meant that the remaining 100km or so of the journey, through increasingly mountainous terrain and frequent tunnels, would have to be completed under steam power.  

Upon leaving Balvano-Ricigliano, trains go straight into a
tunnel, although the disaster occurred in another tunnel

Running coal-fired steam trains through poorly ventilated tunnels was inherently risky at the best of times and the weight of the train required two steam locomotives, producing double the volume of smoke. All was well until the train left the station at the Balvano-Ricigliano station, situated in a steep-sided gorge below Balvano, at about 12.50am on 3 March.  

Entering the Delle Armi tunnel, which is almost 2km long and has a gradient of 1.3%, the train’s wheels began to slip on rails wet from humidity and stalled.  By the time it halted, about 800km into the tunnel, all but the last two wagons were in the tunnel.

Attempting to restart the train inside the tunnel would have been hazardous in any circumstances because of the amount of smoke generated but the problems for the crew were compounded by the fact that, because of shortages, they were reliant on a low-grade coal substitute that produced less power, but more carbon monoxide.

Bodies of the victims were laid to rest in the
local cemetery of Balvano

In addition, there was no communication between the crews of the two locomotives, which meant that as the front locomotive tried to reverse, the second was still attempting to move forward. At the rear, meanwhile, the brakeman in the final wagon, fearing that the train was sliding backwards out of control, applied the brake. The result was that, as the air in the tunnel became more and more toxic and the train failed to move, the crew members lost consciousness. Most of the passengers were asleep and simply never woke up; others who had tried to escape passed out at trackside in the tunnel.

The brakeman was one of only two crew to survive. He eventually walked back the 1.8km to the station, where the alarm was finally raised at 5.10am. By the time rescuers arrived, it was too late for many of the victims to be saved.

Although the tragedy was reported in Italian newspapers it was soon overtaken by other news.  Barneschi believes that the Allies were keen that the event did not receive much attention anyway, fearful that stories of a liberated but starving local population would not reflect well on them.  The Italians, meanwhile, embarrassed that their freight trains were carrying huge numbers of illegal passengers, may have similarly been happy for the incident to be forgotten.

There was an inquiry but no authority or individual was held responsible and no prosecutions resulted.  Of the victims, only the railway employees were given proper funerals. The passengers were buried in four mass graves at the cemetery in Balvano, with no religious ceremony.

The exact death toll has never been established.  The official tally, recorded in the minutes of the inquiry, was put at 517; Barneschi’s research, however, found that when the recovered bodies were laid out on the station platform at Bavano-Ricigliano, they numbered 626.

Salerno in Campania has a pleasant waterfront yet
is often overlooked by visitors to the area

Travel tip:

Salerno, situated some 55km (34 miles) south of Naples with a population of about 133,000, is a city with a reputation as an industrial port and is often overlooked by visitors to Campania, who tend to flock to Naples, Sorrento, the Amalfi coast and the Cilento. Yet it has an attractive waterfront and a quaint old town, at the heart of which is the Duomo, originally built in the 11th century, which houses in its crypt is the tomb of one of the twelve apostles of Christ, Saint Matthew the Evangelist. It is also a good base for excursions both to the Amalfi coast, just a few kilometres to the north, and the Cilento, which can be found at the southern end of the Gulf of Salerno. Hotels are also cheaper than at the more fashionable resorts.

Some of the ancient cave-dwellings for which the
city of Matera has become famous 

Travel tip:

Although Basilicata, of which the city of Potenza is the regional capital, is not among Italy’s major tourist attractions, it has some dramatic scenery and a couple of gems in Matera and Maratea. Declared a European Capital of Culture in 2019, the city of Matera is famous for an area called the Sassi di Matera, made up of former cave-dwellings carved into an ancient river canyon. The area became associated with extreme poverty in the last century and was evacuated in 1952, lying abandoned until the 1980s, when a gradual process of regeneration began. Now, the area contains restaurants, hotels and museums and is an increasingly popular destination for visitors.  Basilicata has two coastlines, one on the Ionian Sea, in the ‘arch’, so to speak, between the heel and toe of the Italian peninsula, the other on the Tyrrhenian Sea, south of the Cilento area of Campania, which is where visitors will find Maratea, a town built on a wooded hillside presiding over around 32km (20 miles) of rocky coastline and more than 20 beaches. 

Also on this day:

1455: The birth of Borgia ally Cardinal Ascanio Sforza

1585: The inauguration of Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico

1768: The birth of composer Nicola Porpora

1882: The birth of fraudster Charles Ponzi

Home

 

Giovanni Amendola - journalist and politician

Liberal writer died following attack by Mussolini’s thugs

Giovanni Amendola was a committed anti-Fascist who
accused Mussolini of murdering a fellow politician

Giovanni Amendola, a dedicated opponent of Fascism, was born on this day in 1882 in Naples in southern Italy.

As a critic of the right wing extremists in Italy, Amendola had to suffer a series of attacks by hired thugs. He endured a particularly brutal beating in 1925 by 15 Blackshirts armed with clubs near Montecatini Terme in Tuscany and he later died as a result of his injuries, becoming one of the earliest victims of the Fascist regime.

Amendola had obtained a degree in philosophy and contributed to the newspapers, Il Leonardo and La Voce, expressing his philosophical and ideological views. He was given the chair of theoretical philosophy at the University of Pisa but, attracted by politics, he stood for parliament and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies three times to represent Salerno.

He began contributing to Il Resto di Carlino and Corriere della Sera, urging Italy’s entry into World War I in 1915. He then fought as a volunteer, reaching the rank of captain and winning a medal for valour.

Amendola supported the Italian Liberal movement but was completely against the ideology of prime minister Giovanni Giolitti. During the war he adopted a position of democratic irredentism and at the end of hostilities was nominated as a minister by prime minister Francesco Saverio Nitti.

Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti was murdered
on the orders of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini

In 1924 Amendola refused to adhere to the ‘Listone Mussolini’ and attempted to become prime minister himself at the head of a liberal coalition. He was defeated in the election but continued his battle for democracy, writing for Il Mondo, a new daily newspaper, which he had founded together with other intellectuals.

Amendola is famous for publishing the Rossi Testimony in December 1924. The document directly implicated the prime minister, Mussolini, in the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, the leader of the Socialist PSU party as well as declaring that Mussolini was behind the reign of terror that had led up to the 1924 elections.

Amendola was one of the deputies who withdrew from the Chamber in protest against the result afterwards. In spite of the threats against his life that had been made during the election campaign, he declared the Fascist government to be unconstitutional.

He was resented by Mussolini for his prominent opposition and as a result suffered an horrific attack in July 1925. He managed to get out of the country and into the south of France but, still suffering from his severe injuries, he died in April 1926 in Cannes.

Amendola left a wife and four children. His eldest son, Giorgio Amendola, became an important political writer and politician.

The statue of Giovanni Amendola in
front of Salerno's Palazzo di Giustizia

Travel tip:

Salerno, the city represented in parliament by Giovanni Amendola, is in Campania in southern Italy on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It has a Greek and Roman heritage and was an important Lombard principality in the middle ages, when the first medical school in the world was founded there. King Victor Emmanuel III moved there in 1943, making it a provisional seat of Government for six months and it was the scene of Allied landings during the invasion of Italy in World War II.  There is a statue of Giovanni Amendola in front of the Palazzo di Giustizia in Salerno.

The Terme Tettuccio is one of the most famous of
Montecatini Terme's famed spas

Travel tip:

Montecatini Terme in Tuscany, where Amendola suffered the attack that caused his death, is an elegant spa town in the province of Pistoia. Its heyday was in the early part of the 20th century, when restaurants, theatres, nightclubs and a casino were built there and many celebrities visited. The town welcomed the famous composers, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Giuseppe Verdi and Pietro Mascagni, and the tenor, Beniamino Gigli.

Also on this day:

1446: The death of architect Filippo Brunelleschi

1452: The birth of Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci

1754: The death of Venetian mathematician Jacopo Riccati


Home

Mara Carfagna - politician

Former glamour model now important voice in Italian parliament

Mara Carfagna has defied detractors to
become a powerful politician

The politician Mara Carfagna, a one-time glamour model and TV hostess who is now vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian parliament, was born on this day in 1975 in Salerno.

Originally named Maria Rosaria Carfagna, she left high school to study dance at the school of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, obtaining a diploma before going on to study acting and the piano.

In 1997 she won a beauty contest as Miss 1997 and participated in the finals of Miss Italia. She had her first experience in television as one of the co-presenters during the 1997-98 season of the Rai variety show, Domenica In, with Fabrizio Frizzi.

Carfagna found herself in demand as a model and posed for some magazine and calendar shoots, but at the same time was studying law at the University of Salerno, graduating with honours in 2001.

More television work came her ways as a glamourous co-presenter of the Mediaset show La domenica del villaggio alongside Davide Mengacci, moving on to present another entertainment show Piazza grande together with Giancarlo Magalli.

Former premier Silvio Berlusconi
made Mara Carfagna a minister

At the same time she was developing a career in politics. She began to take an interest in women’s rights issues and in 2004 joined Forza Italia, the party led by the then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

In 2006 she was nominated as a candidate in Campania and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. She soon attracted the attention of Berlusconi, who was also owner of the Mediaset TV channels for which she worked, who made a tongue-in-cheek but demeaning suggestion that his party should practise the ancient law of primae noctis, which allowed feudal lords to select any female subject of his choice for his sexual gratification.

Carfagna ignored the comment and gained a reputation as a hard-working parliamentarian.  Berlusconi lost his position as prime minister at the 2006 election but won it back two years later.

When the controversial leader named Carfagna in his new cabinet as Minister for Equal Opportunity, she attracted a new wave of publicity.

The magazine Maxim, for whom she had appeared as a cover model, ran some of her pictures again, ranking her at No 1 in a feature entitled “World’s hottest politicians.”

Carfagna (right) greets former president Giorgio Napolitano
on the occasion of International Women's Day in 2009

It was also recalled that a year before winning back power, Berlusconi had said of Carfagna: "If I was not already married I would have married her immediately".  The comment led Berlusconi's wife, Veronica Lario, to demand an apology, although Carfagna dismissed it as "gallant and harmless."

As a minister, she has been an outspoken campaigner in a number of areas, from the level of crime in her home city of Salerno to the management of waste disposal in Campania, as well as prostitution, homophobia and violence against women.

In 2008, a few months after taking office, she attracted some ironic comments from political writers and opposition politicians when she proposed a law making street prostitution a crime, with fines for both clients and prostitutes, over and above existing laws forbidding the exploitation of prostitutes by pimps. The bill was her first major initiative as a minister.

Carfagna has clashed with Italy's controversial
deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini

Her remarks condemning “women who sell their bodies for money” was seized upon in particular by the Italian Committee for the Rights of Prostitutes, who claimed to represent an estimated 70,000 prostitutes working in the country.  But Catholic charities praised her.

In 2009 she became the first political promoter of the law against stalking, later included in the penal code thanks to the Maroni decree.

Also in 2009 she launched the first campaign against homophobia and against violence based on sexual orientation to be carried out by an Italian government.

Carfagna has continued to build her reputation as a politician determined to bring about change and in March this year was elected vice president of the Chamber of Deputies as a reflection of the respect she has gained.  Recently, she has been an outspoken critic of Italy's controversial current deputy prime minister, the Lega politician Matteo Salvini.

Via Botteghelle, typical of the narrow streets
to be found in Salerno's historic old town

Travel tip:

Salerno, situated some 55km (34 miles) south of Naples with a population of about 133,000, is a city with a reputation as an industrial port and is often overlooked by visitors to Campania, who tend to flock to Naples, Sorrento, the Amalfi coast and the Cilento. Yet it has an attractive waterfront and a quaint old town, at the heart of which is the Duomo, originally built in the 11th century, which houses in its crypt is the tomb of one of the twelve apostles of Christ, Saint Matthew the Evangelist. It is also a good base for excursions both to the Amalfi coast, just a few kilometres to the north, and the Cilento, which can be found at the southern end of the Gulf of Salerno. Hotels are also cheaper than at the more fashionable resorts.

Hotels in Salerno by TripAdvisor

Amalfi occupies a spectacularly beautiful setting on the
Campania coast between Naples and Salerno

Travel tip:

Amalfi, just 25km (16 miles) along the coast from Salerno, occupies a dramatic natural setting at the foot of steep cliffs along the stretch of spectacular Campania coastline that takes its name from the town and is one of Italy’s best-known tourist attractions. The town itself attracts huge numbers of visitors each year.  Its ninth-century Duomo dominates the town's central piazza, sitting at the top of a wide flight of steps. The cloister (Chiostro del Paradiso) and museum close by house sculptures, mosaics and other relics.  Radiating away from the cathedral, narrow streets offer many souvenir shops and cafes for visitors.  Amalfi is accessible by bus from Sorrento and Salerno and there are boat services that run along the coast.

More reading:

Silvio Berlusconi - the entrepreneur who became Italy's most controversial prime minister

How Irene Pavetti swapped political office for television

The political campaigner Emma Bonino

Also on this day:

1737: The death of violin maker Antonio Stradivari

1957: The death of entrepreneur Camillo Castiglioni

1966: The birth of record-breaking goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca


Home

Amalfi destroyed by tsunami

Quake beneath Tyrrhenian Sea sparked killer wave

Today Amalfi is a tranquil town with a peaceful harbour - a
far cry from the devastation of 1343

The former maritime republic of Amalfi, which once had a population of 70,000 people, was effectively wiped out when a massive earthquake that occurred under the Tyrrhenian Sea on this day in 1343 sparked a devastating tsunami along the coast of southern Italy.

The tremor itself caused deaths but not on the scale of the tsunami that followed, as a stretch of coastline from north of Naples to south of the Cilento National Park bore the brunt of a huge killer wave.

The towns of Bussanto and Blanda, near the present-day resorts of Sapri and Maratea, were among communities that disappeared completely, while Amalfi and Minori on what we know now as the Amalfi Coast were decimated.

Amalfi’s harbour and all the boats in it were destroyed, while the lower town fell into the sea. Where there had once been a thriving city, only a village remained, the population of which has never grown much beyond about 6,000 people. Its days as a significant maritime power were over.

The poet Petrarch was staying in
Naples at the time of the deadly quake

Salerno and Naples suffered considerable damage, although the death toll was never recorded, it can be assumed it ran into tens of thousands.

What is known today is in part down to the poet Francesco Petrarca - Petrarch - who was staying in Naples at the time of the catastrophe, at the convent of San Lorenzo, and recorded what he had witnessed.

His account, which was contained in a volume of letters entitled Epistolae familiares, described how Naples was in a state of fear on the day of the earthquake, having been warned by Bishop Guglielmo of Ischia that the city would be destroyed. It is thought likely that there had been a series of smaller tremors in the days leading up to the major quake.

Petrarch spoke of a “furious storm” with the only illumination provided by the frequent flashes of lightning, and recorded that “everything began to tremble” soon after he went to bed. He said that people “ran outdoors and tried to avoid things that fell to the ground.”

At first light, when Queen Giovanna was among those surveying the considerable damage to the port, the waters of the bay were seen to recede. Petrarch described the “hideous whiteness of the foam” as the sea suddenly started to retreat.

An artists' mock-up of how a tsunami off Campania might
impact on coastal cities

This was followed, in Petrarch’s words, by "a thousand mountains of waves not black nor blue, as they are usual to be in other storms but very white, they were seen coming from the island of Capri to Naples”.

Among the first victims when the waves hit the Naples shoreline were a thousand soldiers deployed to help survivors of the original quake.  Only one ship in the harbour was not destroyed, Petrarch noting that it had on board 400 convicts

The 1343 tsunami was not the first to be recorded on the Italian coast. After the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD, Pliny the Younger described what experts have interpreted as a small tsunami.

Present day seismologists warn that the submerged volcano Marsili beneath the Tyrrhenian Sea about 175m (109 miles) south of Naples could pose a threat to millions of people living on the coast. Although it has not erupted in recorded history, volcanologists believe that Marsili is a relatively fragile-walled structure, made of low-density and unstable rocks, fed by an underlying shallow magma chamber.

Marsili belongs to the Aeolian Islands volcanic arc and is the largest active volcano of the chain, larger than Mount Etna. It was discovered during the 1920s and named after Italian geologist Luigi Ferdinando Marsili.

Amalfi's ninth-century cathedral was one
building that survived the 1343 disaster

Travel tip:

Although Amalfi is much smaller than it once was, it is still a significant town on the Campania coastline between Sorrento and Salerno, attracting huge numbers of tourists each year.  Its ninth-century Duomo dominates the town's central piazza, sitting at the top of a wide flight of steps. The cloister (Chiostro del Paradiso) and museum close by house sculptures, mosaics and other relics.  Radiating away from the cathedral, narrow streets offer many souvenir shops and cafes for visitors.  Amalfi is accessible by bus from Sorrento and Salerno and there are boat services that run along the coast.

A panorama of the coastal city of Salerno

Travel tip:

Salerno, which has a population of about 133,000, is a city often overlooked by visitors to Campania, who tend to flock to Naples, Sorrento, the Amalfi coast and the Cilento, but it has its own attractions and is a good base for excursions both to the Amalfi coast and the Cilento, which can be found at the southern end of the Gulf of Salerno. Hotels are cheaper than at the more fashionable resorts, yet Salerno itself has an attractive waterfront and a quaint old town, at the heart of which is the Duomo, originally built in the 11th century, which houses in its crypt the tomb of one of the twelve apostles of Christ, Saint Matthew the Evangelist.  The city can be reached directly by train from Naples, which is about 55km (34 miles) north.

More reading:

The Naples earthquake of 1626

How Italy's worst earthquake killed up to 200,000

The 79AD Vesuvius eruption

Also on this day:

1881: The birth of Pope John XXIII

1950: The birth of comedian and novelist Giorgio Faletti

1955: The birth of choreographer and dance show judge Bruno Tonioli


Home

Allied troops land at Salerno

Operation that marked start of invasion of Italy

American troops disembark from a US Navy tank ship
across a causeway set up by the beach at Palermo

The first wave of an invasion force that would eventually take control of much of the Italian peninsula on behalf of the Allies landed on the beaches around Salerno in Campania on this day in 1943.

More than 450 ships carrying 190,000 troops assembled off the coast on the evening of September 8, shortly after news had broken that terms for the surrender of the Italian half of the Axis forces had been agreed.

The US 36th Infantry Division were in the vanguard of the invasion force, approaching the shore at Paestum at 3.30am on September 9, and there were other landings further up the coast near Battipaglia and Pontecagnano involving British troops.

After news of the Italian surrender, the invasion force, which consisted initially of 55,000 troops, were unsure how much resistance they would encounter.

British soldiers on the quayside at Salerno, the day after
the invasion of the Italian mainland had begun

A decision had been taken not to launch a naval or aerial bombardment in advance of the invasion, in the hope that it would take the enemy by surprise. In fact, the Germans were well prepared and even as the first landing craft approached Paestum, the American soldiers on board were greeted with a loudspeaker announcement from near the beach in English, urging them to give themselves up.

Although the German Commander-in-Chief in Italy, Albrecht von Kesselring, had only only eight divisions to defend all of southern and central Italy, he had had six weeks to plan for an invasion following the deposing of Benito Mussolini in July and had been expecting the Allies, who had already taken Sicily, to strike at the Italian mainland. He even had a good idea where any invasion would take place.

The eight German divisions were therefore positioned to cover possible landing sites.

Within half an hour of the first American troops setting foot on the shore, German planes arrived to strafe the beaches. Under Kesselring’s instructions, the Germans had established artillery and machine-gun posts and scattered tanks throughout the area of the landing zones.

The Americans set up a command centre
inside one of the Greek temples at Paestum

This made progress difficult, but the beach areas were successfully taken. Around 7am a concerted counterattack was made by the 16th Panzer division, causing heavy casualties, but was beaten off with naval gunfire support.

Both the British and the Americans made slow progress from their landing positions, and still had a 10 mile (16km) gap between them at the end of day one. They linked up by the end of day two and occupied 35-45 miles (56-72km) of coast line to a depth of six or seven miles (10-12km).

In the days that followed, the German 10th Army were very close to overwhelming the Salerno beachhead and the Allies were fortunate that Adolf Hitler and his commander in northern Italy, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, decided that defending Italy south of Rome was not a strategic priority. As a result, Kesselring had been forbidden to call upon reserves from the northern army groups.

By early October Naples had been taken and the whole of southern Italy was in Allied hands, including a number of vital airfields.

But German strategy changed again in October, with Kesselring given the remit to keep Rome in German hands for the longest time possible.  His armies established a number of defensive lines stretching from west to east across the peninsula and only after seven months of intensive fighting did the Allies eventually reach the capital, in May 1944.

Travel tip:

A panoramic view over the city of Salerno

Salerno, which has a population of about 133,000, is a city often overlooked by visitors to Campania, who tend to flock to Naples, Sorrento, the Amalfi coast and the Cilento, but it has its own attractions and is a good base for excursions both to the Amalfi coast, just a few kilometres to the north, and the Cilento, which can be found at the southern end of the Gulf of Salerno. Hotels are cheaper than at the more fashionable resorts, yet Salerno itself has an attractive waterfront and a quaint old town, at the heart of which is the Duomo, originally built in the 11th century, which houses in its crypt is the tomb of one of the twelve apostles of Christ, Saint Matthew the Evangelist.  The city can be reached directly by train from Naples, which is about 55km (34 miles) north.

The second Temple of Hera at Paestum, built almost 2,500 years
ago at the time southern Italy was known as Magna Graecia

Travel tip:

Paestum, where the Allied landings began, is best known for the extraordinary archaeological site a mile inland that contains three of the best preserved Greek temples in the world, which were once part of the town of Poseidonia - built by Greek colonists from Sybaris, an earlier Greek city in southern Italy, in around 600BC.  The relics cover a large area and takes as much as two hours to explore, but there are several bars close by and a hotel and restaurant just outside the site.

More reading:

Palermo falls to the Allies

The destruction of Monte Cassino abbey

How the Nazis freed Mussolini from his mountain 'prison'

Also on this day:

1908: The birth of writer Cesare Pavese

1918: The birth of Italy's ninth President, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro


Home

Mudslides in Campania

Towns and villages destroyed in natural disaster

Dramatic picture shows mud cascading down mountainside

Italy was in shock on this day in 1998 as a series of mudslides brought devastation in Campania, destroying or badly damaging more than 600 homes and killing 161 people. Almost 2,000 people were left with nowhere to live.

The mudslides were set off by several days of torrential rain and blamed on the increasingly unstable landscape caused by the deforestation and unregulated construction of roads and buildings.

Torrents of mud coursed down mountainsides in several areas between Avellino and Salerno to the east of Naples.  The town of Sarno bore the brunt of the damage but the villages of Quindici, Siano and Bracigliano were also badly hit.

The accumulation of large quantities of volcanic ash deposited by historic eruptions of the nearby Mount Vesuvius is thought to have made the mudslides particularly fast moving and the affected communities were quickly overwhelmed.

Scenes in the Sarno suburb of Episcopio was said to be reminiscent of nearby Pompeii, the city destroyed in the Vesuvius eruption of 79AD, with some streets completely buried in mud up to four metres deep.

Hospitals and schools were destroyed and volunteers joined rescue workers in digging for survivors over several days. It is believed that the bodies of some victims were never found, particularly among a significant number of illegal immigrants in the area.

Residents wade through mud in Sarno

Nearly 4,000 firefighters, troops, forest rangers and medical workers, including 80 United States marines based in Naples, helped with the rescue operation.

One factor thought to have contributed to the unstable mountainsides was the replacement of chestnut trees, which have large root systems that help hold the ground together, with hazelnut trees, which are more profitable but have much smaller root systems.

Environmentalists also pointed to the burning of trees and brush to plant commercial crops and the uncontrolled expansion of towns and villages, with parts of streams and river beds disappearing under concrete and asphalt and drainage channels often clogged with rubbish and building waste.

Many houses, apartment blocks and industrial buildings were said to be shoddily built with inadequate foundations, which meant they quickly collapsed when the mudslides hit.

The catastrophe prompted the Italian Ministry of the Environment to introduce legislative measures for environmental protection which have come to be known as Legge Sarno (Sarno Laws).

But the government was accused of responding too slowly as the disaster was unfolding, failing to issue evacuation instructions even after the Mayor of Sarno telephoned the Civil Protection Department to warn that a torrent of mud, rocks and broken trees was heading for the town.  Rescuers did not arrive until after nightfall, which meant valuable time was lost in which helicopters and other equipment could not be used.

Campania has been plagued by mudslides.  There have been almost 650 since 1918, the highest for any region in Italy.  In fact, it is the most dangerous part of Italy for natural disasters, with almost one-third of all the country's floods, landslides and earthquakes over the past 70 years taking place within its borders.

Travel tip:

Sarno is situated in an area of 500 square kilometres known as the Sarno basin, in which some 750,000 people live.  It is made up of largely industrial towns but also contains the ruins of Pompeii, some 20 kilometres to the west. Parts of the Roman city buried by the 79AD eruption of Vesuvius were unearthed in 1599 during work to alter the course of the River Sarno, although serious excavation did not begin until 1748.

Porticoes line the historic main
street in Cava de' Tirreni

Travel tip:

A diocese of the Roman Catholic church from around 1,000AD, Sarno had religious ties for many years with Cava de' Terreni, a town a few kilometres from Salerno notable for a Benedictine abbey and a beautiful porticoed main street in the commercial district of what was once the most prosperous town in the area.

Home