Over the past week, Italy has been dealing with the aftermath of a devastating 6.2 magnitude earthquake. As [link url=”https://amuedge.com/earthquake-in-italy-balancing-history-and-mitigation/” title=”we covered earlier this week”], mitigation techniques are in need of being updated and incorporated. Or is there something else at play that needs to be addressed?
The devastation from the earthquake, which destroyed towns throughout central Italy last week, continues to grow. The death toll has now reached [link url=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/italy-earthquake-rebuliding-amatrice_us_57c4574ae4b0664f13c97b65″ title=”at least 290″], with approximately 388 others injured, and more than 2,000 residents now homeless.
For 119 years, Amatrice's Hotel Roma was an iconic meeting place. Now it's mostly rubble. https://t.co/Z4uhVLFjso pic.twitter.com/z9uduV2sgS
— Financial Times (@FT) August 26, 2016
Affected towns are now in the midst of rebuilding their communities, but there is also a bigger picture issue at hand that the Italian government must battle: the Mafia.
Seen during the [link url=”http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/news/world/Italy-must-block-mafia-from-quake-rebuild/articleshow/53915886.cms” title=”1980 Irpinia earthquake near Naples”], and as recent as the [link url=”http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/news/world/Italy-must-block-mafia-from-quake-rebuild/articleshow/53915886.cms” title=”2012 Emilia-Romagna region earthquake”], the Mafia has allegedly sought after reconstruction contracts to obtain money and power.
[link url=”http://m.wdbj7.com/news/nation/italy-earthquake-mafiabusting-chief-warns-of-criminal-reconstruction/41416916″ title=”According to Italy’s anti-mafia chief”], the Mafia has used disasters over the years, like the present one, as an opportunity to line their pockets with money, mark their territory, and grow their criminal organizations,
Anna Sergie, an organized crime expert from the University of Essex, [link url=”http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/europe/italy-earthquake-mafia/index.html” title=”stated that Mafia-linked companies win bids for contracts”] to rebuild destroyed infrastructure and then sub-contract the work to other mafia-connected companies and underpay them. This results in [link url=”http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/europe/italy-earthquake-mafia/index.html” title=”cheap and unregulated work”] and typically ends with more money being paid by the owner for maintenance and upkeep in the long run. This allows for excess money to be pocketed by the Mafia, which, in turn, hinders future mitigation strategies, and affects the safety of the Italian people.
In an attempt to battle this problem, the Italian finance ministry has deployed its own policing force to monitor the recovery efforts to ensure the resources are being given to the right people and going to the right places.
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