Eleven dead, stricken municipalities, devastated crops: Emilia-Romagna, a rich region considered “the orchard of Italy”, deplores this Thursday, May 18 considerable damage caused by floods of rare intensity, signs according to the authorities of the “tropicalization” of the Mediterranean climate. About twenty rivers have left their bed in the plains of this region of 4.5 million inhabitants, popular with tourists for its historic cities such as Parma and Ravenna, its green landscapes, its gastronomy and its Adriatic coast.
Eleven people died in the bad weather, according to a new report communicated Thursday afternoon by the authorities, after the discovery of a couple of farmers aged over 70, found dead in their apartment invaded by water . The previous toll reported nine deaths. More than 10,000 residents had to leave their homes. Italy is experiencing a particularly rainy and cool month of May, but a real deluge has hit Emilia-Romagna in the past few days: huge agricultural areas have been submerged under water, ravaging fields of cereals, market gardening, fodder for livestock, entire villages were washed away by muddy floods, bridges collapsed and 400 roads collapsed, landslides hollowed out the relief.
Locally, the equivalent of six months of precipitation fell in a few hours. The damage would be counted in billions of euros, to which are added an estimated two billion after the floods which have already hit the region at the beginning of the month. “Five thousand farms have ended up under water: greenhouses, nurseries, barns with drowned animals, tens of thousands of hectares flooded with vines, kiwis, pears, apples, vegetables and cereals”, detailed the organization on Thursday. The fruit sector alone weighs 1.2 billion euros in the country’s economy, according to the agricultural confederation Coldiretti.
water wall
Among those who lost their lives in these bad weather is a couple swept away by a wall of water while inspecting their meadows. The body of the 60-year-old woman was found 20 kilometers away on a beach, according to media reports. The rain stopped mid-afternoon on Wednesday and meteorologists do not expect significant precipitation on Thursday. The mayor of Ravenna, Michele De Pascale, indicated Thursday that if the inhabitants of certain evacuated localities could return to their homes, others had to leave, dikes and banks of certain rivers threatening to break.
Aerial view of the city of Cesena where heavy rain caused flooding in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy on May 18, 2023
© / afp.com/Alessandro SERRANO
Stefano Bonaccini, president of the Emilia-Romagna region, on Thursday compared the magnitude and consequences of the disaster to the earthquake that struck the region on May 20, 2012 and which caused more than 10 billion euros in material damage. . Where the waters receded, residents worked to clean up mud-covered houses and streets littered with debris. In Lugo, Andrea Ancherani shows traces of mud in his apartment, invaded by the flood. “Nobody here remembers having experienced that. Wednesday evening it was very difficult but today we are here, we are working, waiting for someone to come and clear the streets”, he testified. For authorities and experts, these exceptional calamities will become the norm. “Nothing will be the same as before because this process of tropicalization which is rising in Africa is also affecting Italy,” warned the Minister of Civil Protection, Nello Musumeci, on Wednesday.
Paradoxically, these downpours hit a country chronically affected by drought. However, they will not make it possible to reduce the water deficit linked to the scarcity of snow in the mountains and average precipitation, warn the specialists.