Syria, the collapse of a tower symbol of the country that crumbles

The collapse of a mammoth tower of a thermo-electric power station built more than 20 years ago by the Italian companies Fiat and Avio is the "symbol of Syria falling apart"

A video widely seen on social networks shows the crash of the reinforced concrete tower, tens of meters high, of the Zayzun plant, in the region between Hama and Idlib, in an area out of government control and in the hands of militias co-opted by Turkey. According to Syrian media, the plant had been built since 1995 and started operating in 1998. The cost of construction was estimated to have been the equivalent of half a billion euros at the time.

The power plant supplied electricity to the Idlib and Latakia regions, inhabited by millions of people. With the outbreak of violence in 2011, since 2015 the plant has come under the control of anti-regime militias and, since then, has been repeatedly bombed and damaged by government aviation. As sources in the Zayzun area tell, since then local militias and traffickers have started to take possession of every metal part to sell on the black market. The tower, sources say, collapsed due to this continuous work of "looting" of a resource that "had provided electricity to the Syrians for years".