每日英語跟讀 Ep.K499: Deadly Disaster Turns Italy’s Focus to Illegal Construction

A bulldozer paused and everything went silent in the night as a firefighter, spotting a pink sweater in a generator’s light, reached into the mud-caked debris. This time, it was only a sweater.

一台推土機停了下來，夜裡一片寂靜，消防員在發電機燈光下發現一件粉紅色毛衣，把手伸到泥濘的廢墟中。這次，它只是件毛衣。

Torrential rains last weekend sent a powerful landslide plowing through Casamicciola Terme, a port town on the southern Italian island of Ischia, killing 12 residents — including a newborn baby and two small children — and washing away houses and burying streets. This past week, rescue workers and volunteers continued to dig for survivors and to unearth the town from thick rivers of mud.

上周末的暴雨，導致義大利南部伊斯契亞島港口小鎮卡薩米喬拉泰爾梅發生土石流，造成12個居民死亡，包括1名新生兒與2名兒童，沖走了房屋還掩蓋街道。過去一周，救援人員與志工持續挖掘生還者，並從厚厚泥水中挖出城鎮。

But as some evacuees came back to search for their belongings, many felt an unwelcome scrutiny from a nation that was asking whether the island’s abundance of illegally constructed houses had increased the vulnerability of a town that sits in a geologically fragile zone across the bay from Naples.

但一些被撤離的人回來尋找他們的物品時，許多人感受到令人不快的檢視，整個國家都在質問，島上大量違建房屋，是否讓這座位於地質脆弱地帶、隔著海灣與那不勒斯相望的城鎮更容易受傷害。

Authorities have not clarified which buildings, if any, may have been illegally built. But a series of amnesties over decades from various Italian governments may have rendered most of them legal in any case. That has set off hand-wringing among politicians, including the far-right party of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and a bitter round of finger pointing over who was to blame.

當局還未確認哪些建築可能是違建，如果有的話。數十年來義大利歷任政府的一系列特赦，恐令它們當中的大多數都已合法。這讓政治人物不安，包含總理梅洛尼的極右派政黨，並就誰該為此負責展開激烈相互指責。

“We have no zoning plan since the 1960s,” Vincenzo Capuano, 64, a town resident, said as friends emptied his basement of mud one bucket at a time. “Politicians have never decided where residents can build here. There is no way to build legally.”

64歲鎮民卡普阿諾在朋友們一桶又一桶清理他的地下室泥漿時說：「自1960年代以來，我們就毫無區域規劃。政治人物從未決定可在哪裡蓋房。根本沒辦法合法建造。」

Illegal construction has blighted Italy’s coastlines, hilly landscapes and cities, but the practice is especially endemic in the poorer southern regions, including Campania. On Ischia, an island of 63,000 famous for its thermal baths, 27,000 requests for amnesty on illegal works are pending, from altered windows to entire homes.

違建破壞義大利的海岸線、丘陵景觀和城市，這種行為在較窮的南部地區尤其盛行，包括坎帕尼亞大區。在居民6萬3000人、以溫泉浴聞名的伊斯契亞島，目前有2萬7000份針對非法工程的赦免申請正等待處理，從修改窗戶到整棟房。

Italy has a long history of condoning these illegal constructions, and the anticipation that another amnesty will always arrive has prompted offenders to keep building illegally, marring some of the country’s most pristine beaches with shoddy, and unsightly, homes.

義大利長期縱容這些違建，人們對另一次特赦總會到來的預期，促使違法者繼續蓋違建，以粗製濫造、難看的房屋破壞該國一些最原始的海灘。

On the night of the landslide, mud pounded Via Celario and Via Santa Barbara, the most damaged residential streets, washing away about 10 homes. Within them, four children slept. The youngest, a 22-day-old infant, was found dead in his dead mother’s arms.

土石流當晚，塞拉里歐和聖巴巴拉是受災最嚴重的住宅區街道，約10棟房舍被土石流沖走，裡面睡著4個孩子。當中最小的是22天大的嬰兒，被發現死在他死去母親懷裡。Source article: https://udn.com/news/story/6904/6845044