Rail links to southern Italy were paralysed on Sunday by a few hundred people blocking the line in protest at the reopening of a rubbish dump in the latest chapter of a crisis that many blame on the Mafia.
The protest was sparked by a long-running dispute over rubbish dumps in the region of Campania where last year schools around Naples were briefly forced to close as mounds of stinking trash piled up in the streets.
Dozens of trains south of Rome were cancelled at the weekend and rail authorities organised buses and ferries to transport thousands of people trying to get away for the weekend in the first major exodus for the summer holiday in Italy.
The row focused attention on tensions in Italy between the richer north and the underdeveloped south, where infrastructure projects have long been at the mercy of the Mafia and often held up for decades as money was siphoned off to organised crime.
The region of Campania around Salerno and Naples produces more rubbish than its landfills and incinerators can cope with. Two new incinerators due to have been built last year were delayed because of environmental concerns.
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