• Bad weather in Sicily: rainy night, but Apollo depowered moves away from the island

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October 30, 2021It still rains in part of the coast of eastern Sicily after a few hours of warm sunshine in the morning.

But, as the President of the Region, Nello Musumeci says, "the worst seems to be over".

And the worst is

Cyclone Apollo

, which has moved away from the island.

It is the 'Medicane', the Mediterranean hurricane, which sowed damage and pain by scourging the eastern part of the island for days with pouring rain, strong wind and storm surges and forcing the mayor of Catania to impose a meteorological lockdown for two days.



The city, with an order by Salvo Pogliese, today 'reopened' a few hours earlier than expected.



The shutters of the shops were raised whose entrances and shop windows had been protected with sacks of lava ash from Etna and the people of Catania took back the city. But with caution, past experience, with three victims, a married couple in Scordia and a volunteer in Gravina di Catania, left their mark.



The economic and social pain and wounds are still too recent. In the meantime, bars and outdoor kiosks have returned, the gardens and squares are full of children and young people, who take advantage of the third day of closure of the schools. Among parents and onlookers, the recurring question is: "

But where is Apollo?

".



Radar and satellite surveys place it in the Mediterranean which seems to point towards the coast of Libya. "The phenomenon has decreased, weakened and is moving away from Sicily", confirms the head of the Regional Department of Civil Protection Sicily, Salvo Cocina, who thanks all the forces in the field and "also, at least for the second phenomenon, the citizens who have respected the rules". Meanwhile, the work of the rescuers continued: there are poles to be raised, houses, rooms and streets invaded by water, mud and debris and trees and branches to be removed and for the resumption of electricity and water supplies where they were interrupted. And there are still several displaced people and 'homeless' to assist and flooded countryside with ruined crops.



And it is also the moment of

start of the damage count

that, according to the mayors of Syracuse and Augusta, the cities most affected yesterday by Apollo, Francesco Italia and Giuseppe Di Mare, "are huge". "It will take some time to get back to normal - says Italy - the emergency seems to have fortunately returned, but the work is continuous and constant throughout the territory to try to return to normal conditions".



For Di Mare, yesterday "was a long and heavy day that Augusta will not forget:

in a few hours 177 millimeters of water fell

, never seen such a thing here. "And as a precaution, even if the 'isolation' ended with the reopening of the connecting roads, the city will remain closed by order of the mayor. A storm caused damage on the seafront of Furci Siculo (Messina), devastating and dragging part of the north side pavement into the sea, in the stretch near the Pagliara stream. Trees, barriers and signs have also been swallowed up. Forecasts still speak of rain for the next few days, but not with the violence of recent days.



Thunderstorms also hit

part of Calabria

, also swept by the wind.

The water fell heavily above all in the province of Reggio and throughout the central southern Ionian belt.

However, no particular criticality is reported by the regional civil protection.

Strong storms, with very high waves, are being recorded in the Locride.



While a bad weather front seems to close with the removal of cyclone Apollo, another one risks opening up, but

in Northern Italy where Poppea is expected tomorrow

, an intense Atlantic disturbance that will present itself in the form of

a Halloween storm

that will bring rains to Val d'Aosta, Piedmont and Liguria.

To continue in the following days, with more widespread rainfall, on the Northwest of Italy, Sardinia and western Sicily.