Naples mayor urges residents to stay calm over trash pileup

NAPLES, Italy (AP) — The mayor of Naples appealed to angry residents Saturday to stay calm in the city’s two-week-old garbage crisis, and the prime minister called it an emergency that must to be tackled quickly.

Scattered clashes between youths and police continued, news reports said, as garbage accumulated in stinking mountains in the city. Collectors stopped picking up trash Dec. 21 because there is no more room for it at dumps.

Premier Romano Prodi told journalists in his hometown of Bologna that Naples’ garbage problems had to be solved “once and for all,” and that government ministers would meet Monday to come up with a strategy.

Garbage pileups because of shortage of space in dumps have plagued the port city sporadically for years.

Naples Mayor Rosa Russo Iervolino said she was appealing to the “overwhelming majority” of law-abiding citizens in the Pianura neighborhood, where work has begun to reopen a long-closed dump.