Landslide Destroys Section of Gardesana Road Near Riva, No Victims
In boxing terminology, it would be called the knockout blow. The latest, deadly blow suffered by the Gardesana Occidentale state road yesterday afternoon, around 6:30 PM, could have very serious consequences.
A stretch of road, about thirty meters according to initial assessments carried out during the night, is no longer there: it has been swallowed by the lake after another landslide from the mountain. An estimated thousand cubic meters of rock have erased the 45 bis route, according to early estimates.
At the moment, it does not appear that there are any victims. The site is just a few dozen meters from the point where, less than two years ago, another landslide caused a tragedy, resulting in the death of a pensioner from Arco.
Location and immediate consequences
The area belongs to Trentino, just 300 meters south of Riva, between the first and second tunnels. An immediate ban on vehicle passage has been enforced, while this new incident may lead Anas to reconsider the decision to reopen the Gardesana to the south of Limone tomorrow, where a landslide had struck the highway again just a month ago.
For Limone—a town with over a thousand residents, more than 50 hotels, and an economy almost entirely based on tourism—the situation unfolding seems to evoke a distant past when the Gardesana did not exist (it was inaugurated in 1931), and connections were only possible by lake or by ascending to Tremosine.
The historical and social context
Back then, however, local residents relied on fishing and olive growing, not tourism. An occasional witness to yesterday’s landslide is Antonio Cerrone, a well-known and respected doctor from Limone.
Cerrone likely owes his life to a distraction by his daughter Maddalena, who had forgotten her cell phone. He recounts: “I was heading to Riva with my daughter to pick up her other sister, Francesca, who is attending a swimming course.
The older sister is in the first year of Scientific high school, and the younger is in second year middle school, at the Conservatory. “There was a small, providential stumble,” continues the doctor, “because the girl made me lose a few moments since she had forgotten her phone.”
After waiting for her, we started moving and, just before reaching Riva, we were overtaken by a vehicle traveling at high speed. A few moments later, the girl pointed out that the same car was stopped in front of us, around a bend, in an imprudent manner.
Meanwhile, another car was approaching from the opposite lane, flashing its lights in an attempt to signal something.” A few meters away, the landslide had just fallen, narrowly avoided moments earlier. The doctor retraced his steps, notified the authorities, and an alarm was immediately raised.