Italy Floods: 13 Dead and Thousands of Homes Damaged

Italy Floods: 13 Dead and Thousands of Homes Damaged

Noriko Watanabe and Chika Mori

Modern Tokyo Times

The death toll from flooding in Italy is now 13. Yet, fears persist that the death toll will increase further -after over 20 rivers burst their banks and caused hundreds of landslides.

Torrential rain hit the northern region of Emilia-Romagna. Accordingly, the torrential downpours generated horrendous flooding and landslides. This resulted in the damage of thousands of homes, the destruction of farming areas, and created ravaged towns and villages.

Stefano Bonaccini, the regional president of Emilia-Romagna, uttered: “Extraordinary amounts of rain have fallen on land no longer capable of absorbing them.”

He continued, “We are facing catastrophic events that have probably not been seen before.”

Paolo Meoni – a volunteer in the region of Cesena (Paolo Meoni), told the newspaper La Nazione: “We worked all night in the pouring rain. In some cases, we carried the elderly and disabled in our arms and brought them on a dinghy to rescuers, who in turn transported them to shelters.”

The BBC reports, “More bodies were found on Thursday after almost every river flooded between Bologna and the north-east coast 115km (70 miles) away.”

The Guardian reports, “In 2022, the hottest year on record in Italy, 310 extreme weather events were registered, causing the deaths of 29 people, according to Legambiente, an environmental group. Thirteen people were killed in floods in Marche last September and 12 people, including several children, died in a landslide on the island of Ischia in late November.”

Naturally, the infrastructure in worst-hit areas is horrendous. Hence, thousands of people need housing – and the fear is that more bodies will be found.

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