Exceptionally high tide Tuesday, Venice is preparing for new episodes of "acqua alta" while the Italian government must declare Thursday the state of emergency for natural disaster.

The 50,000 or so inhabitants of central Venice, a classified city - like the artificial islands of the lagoon - a UNESCO World Heritage Site, woke up to the sound of sirens. They climbed to the third level, one less than Tuesday night when the high tide climbed to 1.87 meters, its highest historical level since November 1966 (1.94 meters).

Another episode is scheduled for Thursday but it should not exceed 1.25 meters, the next important alert being expected Friday at 11:20 with an anticipated level of 1.40 meters by the Tidal Monitoring Center of Venice.

Authorities point to global warming

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who arrived the day before, took part in a crisis meeting at the Prefecture and then toured the shops of the Serenissima, world famous for its canals and bridges, which receives 36 million tourists a year, 90% of which foreigners.

While the authorities estimate the damages amounting to "several hundred million euros", the City of the Doges is reorganized, although many museums and schools remain closed.

While multiplying photos and videos to immortalize the scene, tourists are not aware of the risk of engulfment that runs the city, built on 118 islands and islets and built on stilts. The city has sunk 30 cm into the Adriatic Sea in a century.

For the Minister of the Environment, Sergio Costa, the situation is aggravated by global warming, which is reflected in the Mediterranean by a "tropicalization" of the weather with intense rainfall and strong gusts of wind.

Environmentalists also point the finger at the development of the large industrial port of Marghera, located opposite Venice on the mainland, and a growing influx of giant cruise ships.

"The disaster that struck Venice is a blow to the heart of our country, it hurts to see the city also damaged, its artistic heritage compromised, commercial activities on its knees," said Wednesday Giuseppe Conte, promising the rapid release of "first funds" through the emergency proclamation of the state of natural disaster.

This procedure, often used in a country regularly struck by disasters (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and landslides), endows the government with "exceptional powers and means", avoiding for example the need to launch calls for tenders.

The tide of Tuesday night combined with squalls and rain swamped the entire city - 80% - according to the governor of the region Luca Zaia. A septuagenarian died electrocuted at home.

Suspicions of corruption on the floating dikes project

The "acqua alta" has knocked down gondolas, thrown vaporetti (river buses) on the shore, flooded shops, bars and hotels. The 160 firefighters mobilized had to carry out 400 interventions: pumping, recovery of boats having sunk ...

Many officials including the mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, have called to finish "as soon as possible" mega-project dikes MOSE (Moses in Italian, acronym for Experimental Module electromechanical) to "protect the entire basin" of Venice. According to Prime Minister Conte, he is "93% ready" and will "probably be finished by the spring of 2021".

MOSE, criticized as pharaonic, too expensive and inefficient by the ecologists, is based on 78 floating dikes that should rise to close the lagoon in case of rise of the Adriatic up to 3 meters high.

Started in 2003, it should have been inaugurated in 2016 but has fallen behind due to poor workmanship and investigations of suspected corruption. Costs have also exploded, from 2 billion originally planned to already 6 billion euros engulfed in this vast and complex construction site.

With AFP