Italy lashed by bad weather: worker dies in Potentino, alert to rivers and snow chaos
Flooding of the Panaro river: dramatic images from the helicopter.
About 400 displaced
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07 December 2020 In the Italian countryside there is a calamity with millions of euros in damage to crops and livestock.
Isolated farms, wheat and fodder for newly sown animals swept away by the water, flooded vegetable crops such as orchards, vineyards and olives torn from trees by the fury of the wind but also cars and tractors in the mud and rural roads collapsed or blocked by snow.
This is the scenario described on the basis of the monitoring carried out by Coldiretti which requests the start of the procedures to verify the state of calamity in the areas most affected by bad weather along the Peninsula, from Veneto to Emilia, from Campania to Puglia up to Sicily.
The most serious situation was caused by the flooding of the Panaro river in Emilia in the Modena area which - underlines Coldiretti - struck one of the most fertile areas of the Modena countryside characterized by wheat crops but also vineyards, orchards and dairy cattle breeding for Parmesan Cheese.
In the countryside there are, in addition to the inconvenience of farmers and their families who have had to abandon their homes, damage to homes and warehouses, equipment and tractors rendered unusable.
But difficulties - continues Coldiretti - are recorded from Veneto where farms and agritourisms are isolated from landslides up to Campania with the greatest damage reported in the Sarnese Nocerino countryside where the crops in the open field of dop onion, escarole, cabbage and winter vegetables.
Tornadoes and storms throughout Puglia have struck - still reports Coldiretti - the olive groves ready for harvesting in the Brindisi area and dragged away wheat and forage just sown in the Bari area while in eastern Sicily mud on the roads, landslides and difficulties in viability. due to bad weather.
The latest storms increase the count of extreme events that hit Italy in 2020 with an average, so far, of over four storms a day between anomalous snowfalls, hail, tornadoes, lightning storms and water bombs that have caused damage in cities and countryside, according to Coldiretti's analysis of the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD).
Climate change affects a fragile territory with 7,275 Italian municipalities that are part of the territory in danger of hydrogeological instability, 91.3% of the national total based on Ispra data.
The result is that 7 million Italians live in areas at risk of landslides, floods and flooding of rivers in a situation of uncertainty determined by the meteorological trend that affects life and work.