«Come out, there’s a landslide, let’s all go outside», the weather a Niscemi, in the province of Caltanissetta, seems to have stopped at 1.30pm on Sunday 25 January. When everyone here understood that that slight tremor of the earth felt a few days earlier was the alarm signal that something serious was about to happen. The main roads connecting the country with the main Sicilian cities Catania and Palermo were closed, the screams of citizens immediately outside their homes in tears without knowing where to go.
Giacomo Brullo and Concetta Di Merito together with their son Dario who suffers from autism, he is just one of the many families among the over 1500 displaced people who had to leave their home in the center of Niscemi, now a red zone. The houses broken in half, the terraces crumbling along the front of the landslide – which is advancing – and extends for about four kilometres, reaching in some places about 50 meters deep.
“We can no longer access our home because going near it is very dangerous, our son has had panic attacks since the nightmare began, we find ourselves without a home and with nothing”, says Giacomo next to Don Giuseppe Cafàparish priest of the Sacred Heart church which, together with the other parishes in the town, has agreed to open its spaces to host displaced people.
“We are shocked, our family has been dismembered, I sleep with my partner, my sister with my cousin, my mother with my aunt”says Giulia Patti next to her cousin Claudia.
In the midst of so much pain, it is the hearts of the Sicilians, in this case the people of Nisceme who welcome the people who are barely able to recover their possessions, as has happened on other occasions during natural disasters in Sicily.
The Palasport used by the Civil Protection where an average of 400 meals a day are served for lunch and dinner is currently empty. The displaced people have currently found temporary accommodation in the homes of relatives, uncles, cousins, brothers, holiday homes have been made available, bed and breakfasts.
Despite the apocalyptic scenario, the deserted, almost ghostly centre, there were no deaths and the situation within the red zone is now kept under control with a continuous presence of the police.
The risk of a landslide of this magnitude in Niscemi was already known. Since 12 October 1997 another landslide had threatened the center of the town of Nisseno, re-proposing a similar scenario, but not as serious as the current one. The prime minister Giorgia Meloni Wednesday during an inspection in the city he assured that “what happened with the landslides of 1997 will not be repeated and the government will act quickly”.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office of Gela has opened criminal proceedings against unknown persons for negligent disaster and damage followed by a landslide.
Meanwhile the landslide continues to move. There is a lot of fear. In the Mother Church in the presence of thousands of faithful and the Monsignor Rosario Gisanabishop of Piazza Armerina, the painting of was brought Santa Maria del Bosco, invoked by the people of Nisceme during the plague between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and during the Val Di Noto earthquake of 1693.
The painting of the Madonna del Bosco in the Mother Church of Niscemi
(Alessandro Puglia)
“The people didn’t ask for anything, but turned to Mary crying, bringing their own tears”, says Don Giuseppe Cafà, a beacon for a destroyed community that in these hours is asking for help and is afraid of the future.
