Bad weather Sicily, orange alert in Catania: today meeting with Curcio

Bad weather in Sicily and flood in Catania, where the weather alert remains orange even without rain, the Head of the Civil Protection Department, Fabrizio Curcio, has arrived in the city, where he will participate in a meeting with the territorial Authorities and Operational Structures gathered in the Center in the Prefecture Aid Coordination, after the intense wave of bad weather that affected Eastern Sicily and in particular the Etna capital. “Compared to yesterday we have an increase in terms of men arriving from Puglia who are equipped to face flood scenarios. If they happen again, we will be able to give further answers”, explained the head of the Catania Fire Brigade, Giuseppe Biffarella before the start. of the summit in the Prefecture. Read also COLDIRETTI ALARM ON SICILY AND CALABRIA: “20 WATER BOMBS IN THREE DAYS” In just three days of bad weather, as many as twenty water bombs hit Sicily and Calabria, causing victims and damage in cities and countryside. This is what emerges from the Coldiretti balance sheet on the effects of the latest wave of bad weather that hit Calabria and Sicily, based on data from the European severe weather database (ESWD). “The hardest hit region – says Coldiretti – 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. The most devastating events were 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 98 mm fell with a rain duration of 7 hours “. In Calabria, violent rains 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 are drowned vegetables and citrus trees, citrus trees 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 worsens in Calabria where it even rises to 100% of the municipalities. The result was struck structures, collapsed fences and walls and interrupted roads with difficulty for traffic and to reach companies. “We are facing – underlines Coldiretti – the consequences of climate change also in Italy where the exceptional nature of atmospheric events 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 the sun to bad weather, which also compromise crops in the fields with estimated costs that have already exceeded two billion this year between losses of national agricultural production and damage to structures and infrastructures in the countryside “.CASELLATI:” URGENT PREVENTION STRATEGY IS NEEDED “” The flood that is affecting Sicily must sound a strong alarm bell and draw attention to the need for a clear and urgent strategy for risk prevention hydrogeological, because in the Italy that is restarting and rebuilding after the pandemic, they can no longer tolerate rare bridges that collapse due to landslides, floods, floods “. This was stated by the President of the Senate, Elisabetta Casellati, at the opening of the session. “A strategy aimed at rethinking, renewing and above all consolidating – added the second position of the State – the entire national infrastructural heritage to create the conditions for averting the tragic effects of natural disasters, such as the one that is falling on Sicily and those that in recent years have affected Piedmont, Liguria, Veneto, Trentino, Tuscany, Emilia Romagna, Lazio, Calabria and many other regions of Ialia, causing grief and destruction “. “A reflection – concluded Casellati – that I would like to share in this Chamber, in the belief that putting places and citizens in real safety is the only answer that as a Parliamentary institution we must give to a national emergency that cannot be underestimated”. The Chamber then observed a minute of silence in memory of the victims of natural disasters.