ROME – Half a million visitors are drawn every year to the natural beauty in the Raganello Valley in Calabria which claimed the lives of several young hikers during the flash-flood tragedy on Monday.

 The Raganello canyon is located in a nature reserve in Calabria in southern Italy, protected since 1987, boasting a surface area of around 1600 hectares inside the national park in Pollino. The area is a tourist hot-spot and every year the gorge is overtaken by hikers attracted by the beautiful pathways and rafters that love to row through the scenic landscape.

 The gorge of Raganello is divided into an upper and lower part; the upper part, or ‘gorge of Barile’ meanders from the source at Lamia up until it joins the ‘Barile stairs’ during a nine kilometre course. The river, formed naturally, is of great environmental and touristic interest alike.

 Hikers can cross the canyon with the help of only simple equipment. The lower part of the Raganello comes from the Pietraponte area, a boulder located between the cliff edges, reaching the area underlying the Devil’s Bridge. This forms an eight kilometre course in which the tragedy took place. The course is similar to the higher one, but more difficult to navigate, given the greater quantity of water in the basin and the steeper and more rugged surface.

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