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When floods in the northern Italian city of Lugo this past week overwhelmed the local aqueduct and sent water flowing into the surrounding roads and fields, 45-year-old Irinel Lungu retreated with his wife and young child to the second floor of their house.
As rescue workers navigate the flooded streets in boats to deliver baby formula and rescue parents from their homes, the couple watches in the cold as the water rises.
Under “chest-deep water,” he said Saturday, adding, “We have nowhere to go.”
Aid has yet to arrive in parts of Lugo and other northern Italian cities hit by floods that have left 14 people dead and thousands homeless. Flooded rivers and canals have engulfed rural areas. Hundreds of dangerous landslides have paralyzed many areas. And some of the landlocked towns in the mountains are so isolated that they can only be reached by helicopter.
On Saturday, as rain fell again, residents around the ancient city of Ravenna – once the capital of the Byzantine Empire – faced flooding as water receded in some of the city’s hardest-hit areas to reveal damaged furniture and water piled up next to damaged kitchen appliances. . The sofas were soaked in mud. Bottles of olive oil and canned goods, covered in mud, were on the road. A car, lifted by the rushing water, teetered precariously on the garden fence.
Floods have devastated tens of thousands of people in the region, Emilia-Romagna, as the extraordinary weather in some areas caused half of the typical annual rainfall in 36 hours. And experts say that may not be so extraordinary.
Extreme weather events have become common in Europe, from violent storms and floods that killed dozens in Germany two years ago to record-breaking heat in Britain last July. Italy has suffered itself from extreme events, caught between bouts of extreme drought that parch cities, paralyzed agriculture and dry out the country’s breadbasket, followed by heavy rains and floods like this past week.
The extremes create a brutal cycle of hillsides stripped of trees by summer forest fires, and land parched by drought, failing to absorb rain – in this case biblical amounts. The pattern can cause millions of Italians to be surrounded by water now, but, in summer, thirsty to put it.
Last summer, the land became dry “you can see the cracks,” Roberto Zanardi, 59, who lives in the Lugo area, said with exasperation when he pointed to the submerged pear and persimmon groves around him there. “Look at them now.”
Italy’s leaders are trying to tackle what scientists say is the new normal of climate change, but some lawmakers are questioning whether the country is missing an opportunity to prepare for the extreme floods that many have seen and protect the country with artificial basins or other solutions.
“Let’s consider that we live in an area at risk and the process of climate tropism has also reached Italy,” said Nello Musumeci, the country’s civil protection minister, in an interview last week with La Stampa, a newspaper based in Turin in northern Italy.
“On the agenda of all governments for the past 80 years, the fragility of our region has never been a priority issue,” he said. “The question to ask is not whether such a dangerous event as Tuesday will happen again, but when and where it will happen.”
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced on Saturday that she would cut short a trip to Japan, where she is attending a Group of 7 meeting, so that she could visit the flooded areas on Sunday and lead the emergency response.
“Honestly, I can’t stay away from Italy in such a difficult time,” he said in a media briefing. “Knowing me asking me to come back.”
The flooding is the result of what experts describe as a perfect storm of bad weather, saturated soil from storms earlier in the month and high seas.
Heavy rain storms are located in a large area of Emilia-Romagna for a long time, driven by a front and blocked by the Apennine Mountains.
There are storms in the Adriatic Sea near the low-lying waters.
Rivers, streams and canals overflowed, and in some cases breached their embankments, in what is one of Italy’s most flood-prone regions. Soils parched by months of drought struggle to absorb the water.
On Saturday, on the banks of the Santerno River in Emilia-Romagna, workers operated a crane to demolish a two-story building after water crept over a 33-foot-high river embankment, surrounding the structure and stripping the facade. has landed in a field across the road. It was left next to several cars and a patch of torn up and washed away asphalt.
Andrea Burattoni, a 48-year-old farmer who lives on the street, looks on as the crane smashes into the wall, gradually revealing the remains of what used to be a house. Bed frames, kitchen furniture and sports trophy cabinets fell to the ground. The owner, an elderly resident, had been evacuated by his family when the water rose.
But Mr. Burattoni and his family stayed, despite the fear when the water flowed through the fields.
“The rumble was deafening, like an earthquake,” he said, referring to the 2012 quake that devastated the area. On Saturday, he surveyed his field, where he planted peaches next to a vineyard, buried in muddy brown water. “The roots don’t breathe – it’s like being covered with a plastic tarp,” he said. “The water will take weeks, but the season is gone.”
Experts say many around the world can also expect more unusual and severe storms as the world warms, increasing the urgency of action to protect communities.
Barbara Lastoria, a hydraulic engineer at the Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, in Rome, said the debate over water management that arose last week because of the floods was meaningless if the larger, existential problem of climate change was not addressed.
“The rise in temperature leads to the development of extreme phenomena like drought and floods – they are both sides of the same coin,” she said. “The rising temperature is like gasoline in the engine of extreme phenomena: it must be dealt with first.”
For some, the flooding prompted relocation.
Claudio Dosi, 46, a welder in Sant’Agata sul Santerno, said he was considering moving after his parents were evacuated to a local sports center when their house was flooded. “I’m not sure we have a future here,” he said.
Others refused to give in.
Lillia Osti, 77, said she has lived in the same house, surrounded by wheat and pears northwest of Lugo, for 60 years. Flooding is not unusual in low-lying areas, he said, although water has never flooded “from the base floor to the furniture.”
All around, family members removed rain-soaked doors to dry them. “This is not normal, but as long as we are alive, we will rebuild,” he said.
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