ROME, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Years of inadequate spending on maintaining infrastructure and improving warning systems is making the impact of natural disasters larger, analysts said, unnecessarily putting lives at risk and acting as a drag on the country's slow-growing economy.
Most recently, flooding and high-speed wind across Italy last week left at least 29 people dead. Most of the northern Italian canal city of Venice was submerged, while hundreds of thousands of tall trees were felled nationwide. Leaders in 11 Italian regions asked the cash-strapped government for emergency aid funds in the wake of the storms.
The development is not unusual: last year, eight people died in flooding in the coastal Tuscan city of Livorno. Four years before that, 18 people were killed by flooding on the Italian island of Sardinia.
Earthquakes have taken their toll on Italians as well. In 2017, two separate earthquakes killed at least 36 people. In 2016, there were two temblors leaving more than 300 people dead.
In recent years, dozens of Italians have also died in avalanches, fires, and volcanic eruptions.
No country in the world is immune to natural disasters. But analysts told Xinhua such events are more tragic than they should be because of weak infrastructure and a lack of early-warning systems and adequate safety plans.
"There is a dualism in Italy between maintenance and construction," Stefano Cianciotta, president of the National Observatory on Infrastructure with Confassociazioni, a professional group, said in an interview. "Much of the relevant infrastructure in Italy was built in the 1960s and 1970s with an expected life of around 50 years. But political leaders often prefer to leave their marks by building new things rather than by maintaining or updating existing infrastructure."
Though it was not hit by a natural disaster, the collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa in August is an example of a lack of infrastructure maintenance paying a tragic cost. The bridge was in heavy use for more than a decade longer than planned, with various government officials repeatedly delaying plans to reinforce the structure. The bridge's collapse resulted in 43 deaths.
"There is no single entity to blame when it comes to Italy's chronic under-investment in infrastructure maintenance," said Cianciotta, who is also a professor of crisis communication at the University of Teramo. "Italy has spent 85 billion euros (98 million U.S. dollars) less than it should have over the last 10 years. But even when money has been made available, local officials don't always have a clear plan on how to use it effectively."
According to Francesco Napolitano, a professor on the Faculty of Civil and Industrial Engineering at Rome's La Sapienza University, cities can either invest in structural improvements to confront risks associated with natural disasters or spend on early warning systems. Napolitano told Xinhua Italian cities have generally opted for the second option, but even there too little has been spent.
"The culture often involves waiting until a situation becomes serious and then addressing it at that point," Napolitano said. "That is not an effective way to do it, particularly because Italy has so many lakes and streams that can swell with rain. Many of the pathways the water could take are blocked by illegal structures or badly maintained waterways."
Cianciotta said the lack of investments in this area have a cost that goes beyond the tragic loss of life.
"There are studies that show that a lack of adequate investment in infrastructure slows economic growth by as much as 1 percent of gross domestic product per year," Cianciotta said. "If you add that up over a decade, it represents the difference between the economic growth rate before 2008, when the worldwide economic crisis hit, and the growth today."
