Villaricca– Late yesterday afternoon, the severe weather that brought the municipalities north of Naples and much of the Caserta area to their knees transformed Via Roma, near the so-called "Surriento Bridge," into a water trap for motorists and residents.
Torrential rains, which lashed the Marano, Villaricca, Giugliano, and Melito areas for hours, disrupted the road network, already strained by broken manholes and blocked drains.
The alarm was raised by calls to the Carabinieri operations center: several cars had become stuck in a completely flooded underpass, with people trapped inside and unable to escape.
Patrols from the Marano di Napoli Carabinieri company arrived on the scene within minutes, finding themselves faced with a flash flood.
At the lowest point of the stretch, the water level reached approximately 60 metres, submerging cars up to their roofs and making any manoeuvring impossible for drivers.
It might interest you
Marano, municipal sanitation contract awarded: CGIL reports irregularities to Prefect Michele Di Bari
Drug raid in Secondigliano: a 47-year-old man arrested
Naples: Morena Giangrande's driver only gets three years in prison.
X Factor's finale is tomorrow in Piazza Plebiscito in Naples. Manfredi: "It'll be a huge celebration."
Six people were rescued within minutes: two terrified elderly people, two minors trapped in the back seat, and a pregnant woman who had seen water rising up to the windshield of her stalled car.
Everyone was escorted to a safe area and entrusted to the care of 118 emergency personnel, who arrived on the scene along with firefighter teams who began operations to secure and drain the area.
The roads surrounding the bridge were closed to traffic for hours, severely impacting the already congested traffic throughout the northern part of Naples, where widespread flooding occurred between Villaricca, Marano, and Giugliano, impassable underpasses, and cars abandoned in the water.
Similar scenes were also seen in the Caserta area, with the province hit by heavy rains, roads transformed into rivers, and numerous rescue operations for motorists and families trapped in vehicles or homes.
The image of Via Roma in Villaricca remains one of the day's iconic images: an urban bridge that in a matter of minutes became a muddy pool, from which the Carabinieri rescued the most vulnerable from the fury of the water, while the entire metropolitan area was once again dealing with the explosive combination of extreme rainfall and fragile infrastructure.
Leave a comment