Fragility of the territory, we hear after every flood and other natural disasters. No one going all out to deal with it. The government? Navigate by sight and bargain read. While Milan and many municipalities in Lombardy are invaded by the waters of the overflowing torrents, the enabling law on Reconstruction is being discussed in Parliament.
Like all the declamations to which we are accustomed, the Meloni executive through the mouth of the minister Nello Musumeche said he wants to put a stop to emergency management that follows disastrous events. The commissioners cannot last forever, you said: and of course. In a country where the excise duty on petrol still pays 0,00516 euros (formerly 10 lire) for the reconstruction of the Vajont disaster of 1963, the same for the post-Belice earthquake of 1968, up to the floods of Liguria and Tuscany in 2011, Musumeci he explained that the reconstructions they last too long and cost a lot. A regulatory model is needed because "experiences are pulverized and interventions diversify from one territory to another". It so happens that in December 2023, the Council of Ministers definitively approved the text of the bill on Reconstruction presented by Musumeci himself. After 17 months, at the conference “Disasters new paths for reconstruction” we learn that something (perhaps) is starting to move. Meanwhile, the accounts of natural disasters have been done and redone: in the last few 40 years More than 200 billion euros were spent on rebuilding, when half of that would have been enough to secure the territories.
Rebuild and innovate
Before making us listen to all the speeches on prevention again, the government recalled the drafting of a Reconstruction Code, to standardize interventions. “The models are extremely diversified, even with different efficiency and results” said the head of Civil Protection, Fabrizio Curcio. When will we become aware that at any time of the year Italians run much higher risks than those in other European countries? We are the most vulnerable. Past tragedies do not weigh on the shoulders of those who care about the nation. The crazy days of recent weeks between North and South remind politicians and experts of the weakness of the soil, the canals, the embankments, the urgency of security plans. After every disaster the territories suffer from depopulation and economic depression. The State intervenes late and badly to put houses and warehouses back in order.
People are not willing to wait and given the precedents they know that the times are long. And then the delays favor scams and lies, sometimes not far from political cover. “There are small countries where it is recorded a landslide for every inhabitant,” said the General Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, commissioner for floods in Emilia Romagna, Tuscany and Marche and the rConstruction is also an opportunity for innovation. It must be rebuilt according to safety criteria and environmental compatibility rules. We wonder if in the Government chambers they think the same way.
