Garbage piles are accumulating in the streets of Naples and the total amount of uncollected waste in the city has reached 3,000 tons after the closure of a local landfill, Italian officials said Wednesday.
"There are now 3,000 tons in the streets of Naples," said Paolo Giacomelli, a public sanitation official for Naples city council.
Two weeks ago there were 1,700 tons of garbage piled up in the city.
The town of Terzigno near Naples has banned the transit of garbage trucks to a nearby open landfill, Cava Sari, following a series of protests by residents and a report showing the dump was contaminating water supplies.
Gaetano Pecorella, the head of a parliamentary commission investigating the problem, said on Tuesday: "We risk an environmental catastrophe."
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Wednesday that he will travel to Naples as soon as possible to deal with the politically sensitive crisis, which is also on the agenda of a government meeting on Thursday.
Berlusconi, who is under pressure following a split within his coalition, returned to power in 2008 promising to sort out the long-running waste disposal problem in Naples once and for all.
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