In Italy, the toll of the floods rises to fourteen dead, while the inhabitants of Ravenna are evacuated in emergency

The human toll from the floods that have hit Emilia-Romagna, a region in northern Italy, for several days is increasing. Local authorities announced on Friday, May 19, that it went from thirteen to fourteen dead, specifying that the new victim identified was a man found drowned in his house in Faenza.

In the morning, the emergency services are still working to evacuate isolated people in their homes surrounded by the flood, while the rain has started to fall again after more than twenty-four hours of calm. In Ravenna, the municipality has accordingly decreed “urgent and immediate evacuation” of several neighborhoods and streets on Friday morning, and appealed to the population to “move only when necessary”.

In this commune, epicenter of the floods, journalists from Agence France-Presse met haggard inhabitants who were trying to clear the muddy heap accumulated in front of their homes, taking out their furniture and household appliances covered in dirt.

However, the situation seemed to be stabilizing elsewhere with the slow ebbing of the waters, despite residents and road services remaining hard at work to clean houses, businesses and streets invaded by mud and debris. Roads that had been submerged were reopened to traffic.

Material damage estimated in billions of euros

These floods are a new disaster for the region devastated in 2012 by an earthquake, then two weeks ago by the first floods. “It’s a new earthquake”, deplored Friday morning on television the president of the region, Stefano Bonaccini. The material damage amounts to billions of euros.

“Orchard of Italy”Emilia-Romagna owes part of its prosperity to the cultivation of fruit and vegetables, but also to its tourism and the automobile industry built around Ferrari. “We will rebuild everything. But the agri-food and market gardening sector needs to be compensated 100%. We’ve had drought, frost, and now these dramatic floods.”recalled Mr. Bonaccini. “As regards tourism, fortunately the coast [Adriatique, à l’est] is less concerned”he added.

For the Italian Nobel Prize in Physics Giorgio Parisi, these floods are to be blamed “climate change [et] of the increase in temperature, And “we have to get used to it”. “We need a real energy transition”he said in an interview with the national daily Corriere della Sera.

The post-pandemic recovery plan from which Italy benefits, with 190 billion European funds committed for the peninsula, “is a good opportunity” to accelerate this transition, according to Stefano Bonaccini.

The government will also put on the agenda of the Council of Ministers, Tuesday, “suspension of tax and contribution deadlines” for companies affected by bad weather in Emilia-Romagna.

The Giro 2023 also continues to be affected by bad weather, as the 13^e stage, the first big meeting in the mountains, was shortened, and that its start was delayed at the beginning of the afternoon on Friday, because of the downpours that fell on Borgofranco d’Ivrea, in the Piedmont, after the passage of the Tour of Italy in Emilia-Romagna.