Dramatic images of people crying out for help from their balconies, 9 deaths, more than 13,000 evacuees, more than 30 communes flooded, are, at the moment, the balance of an unprecedented wave of bad weather that has dramatically hit north-central Italywhere in two days it rained what normally used to rain in six months.
(It may be of interest to you: Formula 1 cancels the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix: emergency in Italy leaves dead).
Torrential rains – which had already fallen at the beginning of the month, causing damage – returned to hit the Emilia-Romagna and neighboring regions, whose 21 rivers overflowed devastating cities, towns, fields and causing devastation, destruction and death. The most affected towns are Cesena, Faenza, Forlí, Riccione, the Ravenna area, Bologna and surroundings.
The catastrophe, due to climate change and a process of “tropicalization” of Italy, as Minister Nello Musumeci, head of Civil Protection, assured at a press conference in this capital, also caused the cancellation of the Formula 1 Grand Prix Imola, scheduled for this Sunday precisely in the affected area.
While members of the three armed forces, 700 firefighters, 115 police officers and 500 volunteers -among them, 130 specialized in aquatic rescues and divers- already at the scene of the disaster to rescue people who have been trapped in their homes, the authorities asked people to climb on the high roofs of the houses.
Schools had already been closed in recent days and the north-south transit of the peninsula is collapsed due to the flooding of train tracks, highways and highways, as well as the collapse of bridges, mud and avalanches that make circulation difficult. So much so that the authorities also They are asking people not to mobilize.
As it continued to rain and The red alert is still in force in that area of Italy –also scheduled for tomorrow and already hit at the beginning of the month with heavy rains called “water bombs”-, the news showed impressive images. Not only rescuers in helicopters and rubber boats saving various people who were trapped in their homes, totally isolated because the electrical network does not work. There were also scenes of bridges collapsed by mud and avalanches and people, most of them elderly and frail, evacuated by rescuers from totally flooded areas, who were also left without drinking water.
Do not go near the rivers; Those who live near water courses, go up to the upper floors. Do not move if it is not for necessity
“Emilia-Romagna has had a dramatic night”, pointed out this morning on social networks the president of Emilia-Romagna, Stefano Bonaccini, that apart from specifying the damage, gave the idea of the drama. “Much of our territory is unrecognizable,” he said.
“We are in continuous contact with the government, which we have asked to mobilize all possible means to deal with the emergency,” he added, asking the population for “maximum prudence.” “Don’t go near the rivers; Those who live near water courses, go up to the upper floors. Do not move if it is not out of necessity and follow the instructions of your mayors and the competent authorities, ”he urged. Due to the seriousness of the situation, compared the disaster to the earthquake that struck Emilia Romagna in 2012: “We are facing another earthquake, we are facing unpredictable events: in some territoriesin the last 24 hours up to 300 millimeters of water fell, something never seen in these dimensions in so few hours in such a vast territory”, said Bonaccini.
“The government is present and is ready to decree emergency measures to deal with the emergency and help citizens hit by bad weather,” said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who on a stopover on her way to the G-7 in Japan, had a videoconference with Bonaccini and with the Civil Protection operational committee, chaired by Musumeci.
“Nothing will be like before”
Nothing will be like before and this is something that can happen again anywhere in Italy
At a press conference, Musumeci He assured that what is happening now in Emilia-Romagna is the same as what happened on the island of Ischia in November of last year, when a terrible avalanche, also caused by heavy rains, devastated an area and caused 12 deaths.
“Nothing will be like before and this is something that can happen again in any part of Italy,” warned the minister, blaming climate change and the tropicalization process suffered by Italy, lately victim of “llong periods of drought and brief periods of intense rains”. In this regard, Musumeci stressed that, for the worse, when the ground is very dry, “instead of absorbing rainfall, it becomes cemented, with unimaginable damage.”
(Read here: Venice: is it true that it can be under water before the end of this century?).
Since now due to these extreme weather events, it usually rains in two days what it used to rain in six months, Musumeci raised the urgent need to requalify the distribution network and water absorption throughout the peninsula, to prevent and reduce risks. “In Italy, dams have not been built for 40 years,” he denounced.
victims
In the midst of a climate of great commotion, the identities of some of the victims began to be known. According to Corriere della Sera, among them are Sauro Manuzzi and Palma Maraldi, husband and wife, in their sixties, a couple who, when they went out last night to control their agricultural company in Ronta di Cesena, after the overflow of the Savio river, was run over by the torrent of water that invaded a road.
Also, uAn older man drowned in his country house in Forlí, also devastated by the water of the overflowing Montone river; a German woman was found dead on the beach of Cesenatico, probably washed away by the fury of the waters; and another person who died trapped in her vehicle, between the towns of Solarolo and Castel Bolognese. “The body has not yet been recovered because the car is completely submerged”, specified the prefect of Ravenna, while no one ruled out an even higher death toll.
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