In anticipation of the summer, attention remains high on rock of Santa Maria dell’Isolathe subject of important collapse since Easter last year. What you want «absolutely avoid – said the extraordinary commissioner Roberto Muciccihead of the prefectural triad of the Municipality of Tropea – is the free movement of swimmers in an unsafe area». The institution will therefore create «a more effective barrier – Micucci specified -, which prevents people from approaching the foot of the rock and which, at the same time, allows be able to use the place without risk to anyone.” The next intervention will be «a artistic belt rather than an unsightly barrier that makes the symbolic place of the city ugly.” And on the front of safety and on-site controls he then specified: «Keeping in mind the overcrowding that occurs annually in Tropea in summer and the large tourist presence on the beaches, the control of the territory will also pass from there with the patrolling, even at night, by the municipal police».
Last summer, photos and videos of tourists oblivious to the great danger just above their heads made the rounds on all social media and, «what is even more serious – reported several timesformer majority councilor Annunziata Pensabene -, no traffic policeman has ever been seen intervening to apply what is reported on theunion ordinance in force: fine and remove those who reached the collapsed boulders to dive or the swimmers who stood at the foot of the rock to sunbathe. Really I was an eyewitness of a climbing of people, complete with table in tow, intent on feasting on the largest boulder that had fallen away. But the blame – Pensabene has declared several times – also lies with the times former Macrì administration which did things “the way it was done” right from the start, fencing off the area with four poles that even a child would have been able to climb over and sticking the fluttering piece of paper with the ordinance to some canes skimpy sticks stuck in the sand. No one would ever have noticed a piece of paper stuck to a rod on a crowded beach, because that beach is a highly coveted destination! Exacerbating this situation of great risk, which ridiculed the competent authority, were the storm surges which – Pensabene underlined – literally swept away those four “toothpicks” placed on the sand».
Today, on the conditions in which the area finds itself Pensabene offers a heartfelt response appeal to the commissioners: «The area needs one very urgent cleanupeven more so after our reconfirmation at Blue Flag 2024. From the water and the beach it emerges rusty scrap metal and someone runs the serious risk of getting hurt. Especially children who are not aware of the previous situation that weighs on the area. The sea storms that dig out the foot of the rock have brought this danger to light, but as soon as the sand settles again no one notices anything until something sticks in the foot.”
