2023-05-17 18:43:00
The northeast of Italy lives dramatic hours. Torrential rains caused several rivers to overflow as they passed through the cities of Cesena, Faenza and Riccione. The cities were completely flooded. Between Tuesday and Wednesday 130 millimeters of rain fell and precipitation is expected to continue.
Flooded, missing, dead. Chaos, lack of services, sacrificing areas. These are some of the words that can describe the dramatic situation in the north-east of Italy. The region is being battered by heavy rains for more than 15 days. After the 130 millimeters fallen in the last hours, the Italian meteorological service announced that the current chaos is going to be worse. In addition, it warned of more river overflows, landslides and storm surges for much of the Emilia-Romagna region. This climate disaster might be extended to the neighboring countries of Bosnia and Croatia.
“The situation is dramatic in many areas. We had decreed a meteorological alert with the closure of schools and limited movement, but the amount of water that fell in some areas exceeded that which fell two weeks ago, which was already an unprecedented amount,” stressed the president of the Emilia Romagna region. , Stefano Bonaccin, through a video posted on social networks.
As a consequence of the intense rains that have been punishing the region, more than 14 rivers overflowed, causing the cities of Cesena, Faenza and Riccione to be completely flooded. The Italian Civil Protection Minister, Nello Musumeci, through a press conference, made a first assessment of the situation, which he defined as “critical”, according to the NA agency. In total there have been 24 flooded towns in the region.
The German news portal DW reported that the adverse weather conditions make the Italian authorities think that “the worst might be yet to come”.
The deputy director of the Italian Civil Protection Department, Titti Postiglione, expressed on the RAI channel: “The road system is complex, with many flooded streets, it is difficult to travel if you do not have equipped vehicles, there are also problems in the national road system and The interruption of regional rail services and the entire section of the Adriatic is indicated. The invitation is to adopt measures of maximum caution, the emergency is not over, we must listen to the indications”.
weather disaster
So far, the Italian authorities revealed that there are nine deaths, but the number might increase drastically as a result of the number of missing people. In addition, they estimate that more than five thousand citizens were evacuated from their homes due to the devastating floods that devastated the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. This Wednesday morning, the country’s authorities, who warned that “the worst might be yet to come,” according to DW.
“The rains have not ended, they will continue for several hours”, declared the deputy director of the Italian Civil Protection Agency, Titti Postiglione, to the SkyTG24 news channel. And she added: “We are facing a very, very complicated situation.” For his part, the regional president, Stefano Bonaccini, spoke of “numerous missing”.
In addition to the disaster that the Romagna area is going through, the eastern part of the region facing the Adriatic Sea, they forced the inhabitants of cities like Cesena to go up to the roofs of their buildings to be rescued by firefighters with helicopters or pneumatic boats.
another city underwater
Ravenna is another of the towns that are in crisis. “It was probably the worst night in the history of Romagna”, declared the mayor of Ravenna, Michele de Pascale, to public radio RAI, who affirmed that five thousand people were evacuated in his city during the night alone. “Ravenna is unrecognizable due to the damage it has suffered,” the Archyde.com agency published.
Minerva
The images of the rescue made by an Italian citizen and broadcast by WhatsApp show the magnitude of what the region is going through.
With the probability of rain in the next few hours, the meteorological catastrophe in the area does not foresee relief in the immediate time. The heavy rains that fell in Emilia-Romagna followed several weeks of drought that reduced the water absorption capacity and worsened the impact of the floods.
NT CP
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