A battalion of ecoterrorists engaged in a fight with police on the construction site of the base tunnel of the Turin-Lyon high speed railway (TAV) in Chiomento (Italy), succeeding in breaking through fences and provoking large damages and casualties. More than 120 police officials were injured and over a million Euro machinery was destroyed by the mob.
More than 400 “black bloc” terrorists were identified, most of whom coming from France, Germany and Belgium, in addition to the Italian component. The attack followed the usual script, with the mob taking part in an authorized anti-TAV demonstration, and eventually splitting and launching the assault in a well-planned strategy, using molotov cocktails, explosives, anti-gas masks etc. A bigger disaster was avoided when the police succeeded in keeping the mob at distance from gas reservoirs.
The Anti-TAV demonstration, which offered a cover to the mob, ran banners such as “Nature rebels against the TAV.” The “No TAV” movement published video clips of the attack, applauding at the breaches into “what looked like one of the best-defended bulwarks in history.”
The Turin-Lyon high-speed railway is planned to be operational by 2034. The same year, if everything goes smooth, the Messina Strait Bridge and the Naples-Palermo TAV and highway connections will be ready. It will then be possible to travel from Paris to Palermo (1485 km) in 11:45 hours, from the current 28-30 hours. A major gain will be replacing the mandatory ferry-connection between Sicily and the mainland. High-speed trains cannot be put on a ferry, as they cannot be disassembled
.
Last march, the construction site in Chiomonte received from the German Herrenknecht company the first one of a total 7 Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM) that will be employed for the construction of the base tunnel. The TBM is 235 meter long, 3200 tonnes heavy and needed 150 trucks to be transported to the construction site in Chiomonte. It is a dual-mode machine, able to proceed on hard rock as well as soft ground.
It is feared that the ecoterrorists will organize similar guerrilla attacks against the Bridge construction sites, as soon as they are fully operational.
