Bad weather in Sicily and Calabria, Coldiretti: “In three days 20 water bombs”

In just three days of bad weather, as many as twenty water bombs hit Sicily and Calabria, causing victims and damage in the cities and countryside. This is what emerges from the Coldiretti report on the effects of the latest wave of bad weather that hit the two regions, based on data from the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD). “The hardest hit region – the association underlines in a note – is Sicily where almost all the storms were concentrated for a total of 17 extreme events that affected the provinces of Catania, Ragusa, Syracuse and Trapani. more devastating events occurred in Linguaglossa in the province of Catania where on Sunday 320 mm fell for a duration of 18.5 hours while Monday in Catania the rainfall on Monday lasted 8 hours with the fall of 127 mm of water while on Tuesday they fell 98 mm with a rain duration of 7 hours. In Calabria – continues the note – violent rains have affected Mongiana in the province of Vibo Valentia, Rocca Forte del Greco in the province of Reggio Calabria and San Giovanni in Fiore in the province of Cosenza “. “The result of the intense rainfall in the region – underlines Coldiretti – are drowned vegetables, citrus plants cut down in the flooded countryside where it is impossible to sow and the harvest of ripe olives has been interrupted with incalculable damage to farms. Violent storms and wind storms hit a region like Sicily which has 92.3% of the municipalities with part of its territory at risk of landslides and / or floods with the land unable to absorb the water that falls violently and tends to move away by sliding causing flooding and landslides. A situation that – explains Coldiretti – worsens in Calabria where it even rises to 100% of the municipalities. The result is struck structures, collapsed fences and walls and interrupted roads with difficulty for traffic and to reach companies “.” We are facing – writes the association – the consequences of climate change also in Italy where the exceptional weather conditions is now the norm, with a tendency to tropicalization that manifests itself with larger hail, a higher frequency of violent events, seasonal delays, short and intense rainfall and the rapid transition from sun to bad weather, which also compromise crops in the fields with estimated costs that have already exceeded two billion this year, including losses in national agricultural production and damage to structures and infrastructures in the countryside “.