The Petacciato landslide has reactivated: everyone knew about it, but nothing was done
Environment — di Simone Santi
The Petacciato landslide has reactivated: it had been known about for years, yet nothing was done to address it
The Petacciato landslide has reactivated: everyone knew about it, but nothing was done
The Petacciato landslide has reactivated: it had been known about for years, yet nothing was done to address it
The landslide that occurred on 7 April in Petacciato, in Molise, literally split the region in two, also cutting off Puglia from rail and road communications with the rest of the Adriatic corridor of Italy. A situation that caused serious damage (at least 400 million euros as a preliminary estimate by the Molise Region), widespread disruption and, fortunately, no casualties. The trouble is that this was not a sudden or unforeseen landslide — on the contrary: the right word to describe the Petacciato landslide is not "occurred", but "reactivated".
That the territory is fragile and unstable is nothing new to those who know that stretch of the Molise coast: the landslide movement has been documented since the early twentieth century and in recent decades it had already remobilised in 1991, in 2009 and in 2015. Each time, the same dynamic: rainfall not exceptional in intensity, but prolonged and well distributed over time, capable of infiltrating deep into the ground and pressurising underground aquifer layers until a slope that needed no further encouragement began to slip. This time the triggering factor was cyclone Erminio.
The result was immediate and brutal: the A14 motorway, the Adriatic railway line and the SS16 cut off in a single blow. Puglia, in effect, isolated for days from the rest of the country for road and rail links northward. Compounding the picture, the collapse of a bridge on the SS16 near the mouth of the river Trigno, on the border between Molise and Abruzzo, where the search for a missing man continues with the assistance of naval vessels and Coast Guard divers.
A landslide at Petacciato that everyone knows about but no one stops
The geology of the Petacciato landslide is precisely known. Vincenzo Simeone, full professor of Applied Geology at the Politecnico di Bari and a researcher on this slope since 1990, describes it as "a movement that develops in silty-clay deposits with sandy interlayers, deformed by the tectonic thrusts of the Apennines, at one of the buried thrusts of its front." Here the term thrust refers to a tectonic phenomenon whereby rock masses (tectonic units), detached from their substrate, are mechanically superimposed onto adjacent terrain.
The landslide is several tens of metres thick, extends from the top of the ridge on which the town stands all the way to the sea, and in its most intense remobilisations it even lifts the seabed. The mechanism is that of interstitial overpressures: water accumulates in deep sandy layers until it exceeds the pressure of the overlying soil, effectively lubricating the sliding surfaces. Once the pressures dissipate, the movement slows and tends to stabilise, but the slope remains chronically exposed to every new cycle of heavy rainfall. The problem, as Simeone points out, is that the three most important infrastructures of the Adriatic axis run along the lower belt of this slope. This is no unfortunate coincidence: it is the geography of the territory. And every remobilisation hits all three.
La frana di #Petacciato, in Molise, da ieri mattina è tornata a muoversi, creando gravi ripercussioni sulla viabilità. Atteso per un sopralluogo nel primo pomeriggio il capo della Protezione Civile.
#Tg1 Elena Biggioggero
#Tg1 Elena Biggioggero
A construction site open for too long
The President of the Molise Region Francesco Roberti has estimated the total damage from the emergency at over 400 million euros, a figure set to be refined as the technical platforms are activated through which each municipality will be able to register losses sustained by infrastructure and the productive system. The landslide movements struck not only Petacciato, but also the inhabited centres of Salcito and Civitacampomarano, with critical situations that risk dragging on over time. On the question of responsibilities, however, a story emerges that gives pause for thought. As far back as 2021, the Molise Region had announced a tender for the hydrogeological consolidation of the slope, with an allocation of over 40 million euros: one of the most substantial investments ever planned in Italy for this type of intervention.
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However, as geologist Antonello Fiore, president of the Italian Society of Environmental Geology, recalls, the tender for the joint award of executive design and construction was only published in December 2025. In between: four years of bureaucratic process, consistent with the national average which, according to statistics from the Court of Auditors, puts the average time between design and completion of risk mitigation works at five years. "Climate change is accelerating the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events," Fiore states. "The administrative system and planning procedures are often unable to keep pace with the speed at which disasters unfold." The Petacciato case is, in this sense, emblematic: the risk was known, the funds had been allocated, but the work had not been completed in time.
#Campobasso, dal mattino #vigilidelfuoco impegnati a Salcito per una frana che ha interessato alcune abitazioni, per precauzione evacuate 50 persone: in corso verifiche tecniche negli edifici, elicottero Drago in ricognizione aerea per monitorare l'area [#9aprile 15:45]
Hydrogeological risk knows no boundaries
The isolation of Puglia, unlike what happened in 2010 with the Montaguto landslide, this time has no viable road alternatives. The repercussions have extended to Abruzzo and Puglia, with immediate effects on transport, logistics and everyday mobility. Giovanni Caputo, president of the Order of Geologists of Puglia, seized the opportunity to raise a structural issue: hydrogeological risk does not stop at administrative boundaries, yet institutions continue to manage it in a fragmented manner, region by region, without an integrated vision.
🛣️ First cracks reported on the A14 motorway due to the Petacciato (CB) landslide.
Since the landslide reactivated, the A14 between Abruzzo and Molise has been blocked and the railway tracks have deformed, with shifts of over 10 centimetres.
Since the landslide reactivated, the A14 between Abruzzo and Molise has been blocked and the railway tracks have deformed, with shifts of over 10 centimetres.
In the days following the event, the traffic situation began slowly to ease. And the government declared a state of emergency, lasting twelve months, for Abruzzo, Basilicata, Molise and Puglia, all hit by similar phenomena within the space of a few weeks, with a total allocation of 50 million euros. But the underlying question remains open: partial reopenings and a state of emergency bring relief, but not an answer. The Petacciato landslide reactivated in 1991, in 2009, in 2015, and now in 2026. And it will reactivate again, unless the structural interventions now finally under way are seen through to completion, and unless the country learns, once and for all, that prevention costs less than reconstruction.