Video | Emergency talks in Italy as Naples landfill crisis escalates into violent riots

The clashes prompted the government to call an emergency meeting for today.

Demonstrators in the small town of Boscoreale "assaulted 20 policemen and damaged 16 vehicles including eight police cars" during running battles with officers in riot gear wielding truncheons, a Naples police spokesperson said.

There was no word from officials on the numbers of protesters injured.

Five garbage trucks were set alight as officers fired tear gas and set up road blocks to regain control of the town, media reports said.

The mayor of Boscoreale, Gennaro Langella, said he would close schools in the town for two days to safeguard public order, ANSA news agency reported.

The clashes followed a decision by local authorities to move ahead with plans to open a vast garbage tip in the area, where there is already a dump.

The Cava Vitiello tip is planned to be the biggest garbage dump in Europe with a three-million-tonne capacity and will take waste mainly from Naples.

Yesterday’s violence followed a night of clashes between residents and police in the nearby town of Terzigno as hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets with women and children to protest the opening of the new dump.

The inhabitants of Terzigno and several other municipalities in the area are planning to bring their case to Rome later today, where they are to hold a rally.

Domenico Auricchio, mayor of Terzigno, travelled to Rome to meet Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's and said he hoped to persuade the Italian premier to do something about the crisis.

"Twenty days ago Berlusconi told me he would have found a solution to the second tip," he said.

"He promised he would come to Terzigno but he still hasn't," he said.

The leader of Italy's Green party, Angelo Bonelli, who had gone to Terzigno to meet residents, said the crisis was caused by "Berlusconi's lies" and called for the prime minister to resign.

"Italians have been deceived by the Berlusconi government that not only lied about resolving the garbage crisis but still doesn't have a plan to resolve the problem," he said.

But the head of the Campania region where Naples is located, Stefano Caldoro, said fears about setting up a second garbage dump were "unmotivated."

Tensions have been rising in the area in recent weeks on this flashpoint issue, which helped Berlusconi to his election victory in 2008 after he promised to stamp out the waste disposal problem in the area.

The European Court of Justice earlier this year criticised Italy, saying it had no adequate system for waste disposal in the Naples region and warning that the problem was a risk to human health and the environment.