Landslide carries away Italian cemetery, 200 coffins into the sea

PanARMENIAN.Net - A landslide carried away a cemetery on the edge of a cliff in the northern Italian region of Liguria, scattering about 200 coffins and bodies across a hillside and into the Mediterranean Sea, The New York Times reports.

Scuba divers managed to retrieve 12 coffins from the sea by Wednesday, February 24 after the landslide in the town of Camogli, about eight miles north of Portofino, two days earlier. Most of the coffins from the cemetery remained strewn around and under the rubble caused by the landslide.

Relatives of people who had been buried in the cemetery gathered in the main square of the seaside town to get news and protest what they said was negligence by the local authorities.

The landslide was probably caused by erosion of the cliff under the cemetery, worsened by storms that have hit the fragile Ligurian coast in recent years, according to Italy’s National Council of Geologists.

The landslide, which occurred down the coast from Genoa, where a bridge collapsed in 2018 killing 43 people, prompted outrage in Italy about a lack of infrastructure maintenance and the prevention of natural disasters. Prosecutors in Genoa have opened an investigation into the collapse the cemetery.