Rome mayor under fire as another pine tree falls near the Colosseum.
Three people were injured after a massive pine tree fell on Rome’s central Via dei Fori Imperiali on Sunday in the third such incident on the street in less than a month.
The tree, reportedly more than 100 years old, uprooted and collapsed at around 13.30, near the Forum of Trajan. Its branches struck three passersby, including a 17-year-old Italian girl, a Romanian tourist and a Bangladeshi man.
Emergency services rushed to the scene and the three injured people were taken to hospital, as police closed off public access to the section of the street between Largo Corrado Ricci and Piazza Venezia.
Authorities confirmed that their injuries were not life-threatening, however the outcome could have been much worse: Via dei Fori Imperiali is usually packed with thousands of tourists. The fact that the tree fell at lunchtime meant that there would have been fewer people on the street than later in the afternoon.
Last month two other large pine trees fell on the same street: one outside the tourist information point near the Colosseum on the evening of 4 January, the other near Piazza Venezia at dawn on 8 January. Miraculously nobody was injured in either incident.
Rome’s environment councillor Sabrina Alfonsi stated on Sunday that even positive test results on the health of older trees “leaves a wide margin of risk” and that talks were under way with experts to ascertain “what scope there is for improving the quality of the tests, assuming that this is even possible.”
Alfonsi said that authorities would “seriously consider” replacing older trees with younger ones in areas with high levels of visitors, citing factors such as the trees’ advanced age and their “health compromised by the stress of the urban environment and human intervention”.
The latest falling tree incident has renewed concerns for public safety and sparked a backlash for the adminstration of the city’s centre-left mayor Roberto Gualtieri.
“The third collapse in a month confirms a disaster that is there for all to see: Rome’s public green spaces are out of control,” said Fabrizio Santori of the right-wing Lega, while the centre-right Forza Italia warned: “We need to intervene immediately before a worse accident occurs: we need an immediate extraordinary inspection plan for all of the capital’s tree population.”
The case also raises questions about the future of the Roman skyline which is synonymous with the majestic “umbrella” or stone pine trees.
Many of these trees were planted in the 1930s and are reaching the end of their natural life cycle in an urban environment, as well as facing a threat from a sap-eating parasite called the pine tortoise scale or toumeyella parvicornis.
Photo: Leggo
