sent to Torre del Greco
You dig through the rubble and also search in the archives of the Municipality of Greek’s tower. The task force set up yesterday morning by the mayor Louis Mennella now he has to find solutions to give assistance and housing to about 60 people: the twenty inhabitants of the collapsed building and those of the adjacent evicted buildings. “But we are in July, all the hotels and B&Bs are occupied,” says the mayor.
Mayor, in the meantime, an ordinance from 2013 emerges: a good ten years ago the Municipality ordered the owners of an apartment on the second floor to take steps to repair the damage caused by water infiltration. The same diktat also applies to the other owners of the property which was damaged by infiltrations from the attics.
«All the staff of the Technical Office is working to recover further documents relating to that building».
You have been mayor for a month and a few weeks, will you have to reconstruct what happened between March 21, 2013 and yesterday?
“We are precisely working on this: we must ascertain whether those works have been carried out”.
If not?
“I believe that Judge Fragliasso and the pool he appointed will also investigate this aspect of a story that could have had far more serious consequences.”
Have you already ascertained whether the municipal administration of the time carried out investigations between that ordinance and yesterday’s near tragedy?
«This is also an issue that we are verifying. The operations to trace the documentation is more complex than one might think because ten years ago the acts of the public administration were not computerized».
In cases where the formal notices are not carried out, shouldn’t the Municipalities act to the detriment?
«Probably that this procedure has been followed, that’s why the Technical Office is at work».
After the 1980 earthquake, that area of Torre del Greco fell prey to slow or non-existent interventions for decades; dozens of buildings remained caged in scaffolding until recently. Is the risk of collapse still high?
“I’ve already organized a screening of buildings throughout the neighborhood.”
The fire brigade and the Torre Annunziata prosecutor’s office will establish the causes of the collapse but at the moment the gas leak seems to be excluded. It seems that the building has imploded: is it possible that renovations have been carried out and perhaps some pillars have been knocked down?
«We will know in the next few days from the technicians. At the moment it is all to be deciphered, but it seems that being an ancient building it only had load-bearing walls and no pillars ».
Will the Municipality take care of the removal of the rubble?
“Certainly those boulders must be quickly eliminated and the site must be made safe to avoid further dangers to the citizens”.
Where will the evicted tenants be housed?
“We are also looking for places in nearby cities, we will find decent solutions”.
Do you think it will have the support of the institutions?
«The fact that the prefect of Naples came to the Municipality and also brought the solidarity of President Meloni, that the head of the Torre Annunziata prosecutor’s office, Nunzio Fragliasso and the major representatives of the forces of order were here, is certainly a comforting fact which confirms the interest of the highest offices of the State”.
Will it take a lot of money now, will it ask for financial aid?
“I hope to find institutional support in this sense too”
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on Il Mattino