‘Situation is dire’ for Sicily town teetering on cliff edge after landslide

The mayor of a hilltop town on Sicily said “the situation is dire” after a powerful storm brought down a long section of hillside, leaving houses perched perilously on a cliff edge.

About 1,500 people have so far been evacuated from their homes because of the landslide, which began to show signs of movement on Sunday before developing a 4km-long front. The chasm continues to widen, raising fears it could swallow the town’s historic centre.

“This is a dramatic landslide,” Massimiliano Conti, the mayor of Niscemi, a town in the south of the island, said in a video on social media, while urging people living beyond the cordoned-off areas to “stay home”.

“I don’t want anyone to take this event lightly,” he added. “Fortunately there were no injuries, only damage to homes.”