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Green shimmer in the water
Photo: Luigi Costantini / dpa
In Venice, a section of the Grand Canal has turned green. Residents at the Rialto Bridge, which is popular with tourists, had pointed out a "veil of bright green liquid" on the water, said the regional president of Veneto, Luca Zaia, on Sunday via Twitter. According to the local newspaper "La Nuova Venezia", the police are investigating the question of whether climate activists are behind the discoloration.
The prefect in charge of public security had arranged an "emergency meeting" with the police to determine the origin of the liquid, regional president Zaia wrote. According to its own information, the fire brigade cooperated with the environmental protection agency of the Veneto region and took water samples.
During the subsequent investigation, residues of a paint were found that is often used to detect water leaks, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
Initially, neither one person nor one group confessed to deliberate discoloration of the canal. Last weekend, an environmental group stained the water of Rome's Trevi Fountain black with biochar to protest the climate policies of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Italian government.
13 dead in floods
The Grand Canal had already been turned green a good five decades ago. In 1968, during the Biennale art exhibition, the Argentine artist Garcia Uriburu poured bright green dye into the water to raise awareness of environmental protection.
Just the week before last, several rivers in northern Italy burst their banks and caused considerable destruction in many places, killing 13 people. The heavy rains caused by the floods had followed a period of severe drought. Many activists and scientists attribute extreme weather to climate change.
mpz/dpa