weather
Snow, cold and floods in Italy
Snow covers the southern face of Etna volcano in eastern Sicily. photo
© Salvatore Allegra/AP/dpa
Floods in Venice, fresh snow on Mount Etna and heavy rain on the Adriatic: Italy is suffering from adverse winter weather.
Italy is groaning under the cold, snow, rain and storms. A bad weather front in the Mediterranean country caused heavy snowfall at the start of the week, extending to the southernmost regions of Apulia and Basilicata. In many cities and towns, schools were initially closed on Monday for safety reasons. Even in the Sicilian province of Siracusa, where a heat record of 48.8 degrees was measured in the summer, some snow fell overnight.
Civil protection issued the second highest warning level because of the precipitation for the Emilia-Romagna and Marche regions in central Italy. The authorities are observing heavy rainfall and flooding on the Adriatic coast there. In the Senigallia area, where 12 people died in autumn storms, residents were asked to go to higher floors. On the island of Ischia, where twelve people also died in landslides at the end of November, around 400 residents had to leave their homes days ago. A return will initially be delayed further.
Venice expected a flood of 125 centimeters. To prevent this from flooding the city center around the famous St. Mark’s Square, all mobile flood protection gates in front of the lagoon were extended.
Ferry connections to the Aeolian Islands between Sicily and Calabria were resumed at the weekend after they had been interrupted for more than 40 hours due to bad weather. On Monday, however, the village of Ginostra on the volcanic island of Stromboli was still cut off from the outside world.
In many towns and villages in central Italy, the fresh snow paralyzed traffic and caused chaos. In the Valmarecchia valley in the province of Rimini, the snow masses reached a height of up to two meters on Monday morning, as reported by the Ansa news agency. The authorities also warned of avalanches. In Perugia, the capital of the Umbria region, a number of roads were closed from which the fresh snow could not initially be cleared.
Further snowfall, some heavy, was also expected in the northern Italian holiday region of South Tyrol on Monday.