Resentful Northern Italians liken their country to a milch cow. They are the mouth, which does all the work chewing the cud. The pendulous udders hang over Rome, which gets all the cream. The south is the rear end and upon it is deposited the end product. Southern Italy must certainly feel dumped on by the forces of nature (as well as by northern stereotyping) with the terrible mudslides which have devastated village communities in the Campania region. Natural catastrophes have laid waste to large parts of the south for thousands of years and continue to blight an area which is almost like a Third World country compared with the rest of Italy.

Over the years the south's failure to root out crime and corruption, whether organised by the Camorro in Naples or the Mafia in Sicily, has severely compromised its case for extra government funding to improve its lot. A mix of corruption and incompetence on a grand scale conspired to deny many of the victims of the 1980 earthquake the money raised to help them. The damage caused by this week's mudslides is estimated at more than #11bn. Money must be provided quickly to help the victims and their families. That is the immediate priority. Longer-term, proper vigilance must guarantee that aid goes to the right people in the right places.

That must be a particular priority for the EU taxpayer, who sees so much of his contribution to Brussels being fraudulently used. Italian government at central and local government level must learn the lesson of this latest tragedy. It was a disaster waiting to happen: deforestation and the diversion of rivers (both commercially

driven) leaving hillsides bare and the perfect conduit for the mud made and moved by relentless torrential rain; civic incompetence thwarting engineering projects which would have prev-ented the mudslides; and corruption enabling property developers to build houses in areas where they should have been banned. In the face of such human recklessness and greed nature can still wreak a terrible revenge.