As a cemetery collapses off a cliff and dozens of coffins end up in the sea

Part of a cemetery located on a cliff in the Italian region of Liguria (north-west) has collapsed due to a landslide, to lose dozens of coffins that ended up in the sea, the fire department confirmed Monday.

No one was injured in the collapse, according to the same source.

The cemetery is in a cliff along the road from Recco to the village of Camogli, about twenty kilometers from Genoa, and is one of the most evocative and famous of the Côte d’Azur.

The cemetery was affected by a landslide which caused the collapse of one of its columbarium areas. In this way, the niches sank tens of meters to the rocks on the shore and many coffins ended up in the sea.

Firefighters, diving teams and Coast Guard boats came to the scene to secure the area and recover the coffins, to identify.

Those responsible for the alarm were the masons who restored pantheons and who directly witnessed the collapse of part of the cemetery, recording it with their cell phones.

The workers tell in the recordings, broadcast by local media, how the ground started to vibrate and right under his eyes part of the cemetery started to crack and ended up sinking on the beach.

The landslide was allegedly caused by erosion of the cliff below the cemetery area, aggravated in all probability by the severe storms that have hit Liguria in recent years. In fact, the episode is a new sample of the fragility of the Ligurian territory, a region affected in recent years by increasingly violent floods, landslides and landslides.

Tino Revello, Camogli’s public works advisor, explained to ANSA that the area had been under observation for some time and that they were carrying out work to consolidate the rocky cliff under the cemetery: “The area had also been cordoned off because in recent days there had been strange squeaks.”

However, the collapse was not predictable, according to the mayor of Camogli Francesco Olivari. “From an initial analysis, it appears to be a collapse that is difficult to predict and contain. At the top of this cliff, there was a series of niches which have fallen ”, Explain.

The Coast Guard has placed barriers in the sea to contain materials that have found their way into the water and have not yet been recovered.. The public works adviser said on Monday that “At the moment 10 coffins have been found in the water and there are no other coffins to recover.”

This Tuesday there will be a drone flight for more precise research and for organize the recovery of bodies which were trapped in the rocks and in the dirt brought by the landslide.

The cemetery of Camogli is one of the most popular in the region due to the area in which it is located, in the picturesque Italian “riviera” facing the Ligurian Sea.

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