The rescue forces worked non-stop to rescue people who were trapped in their homes following the biggest floods in the region in the last hundred years, which broke out last night in the Emilia-Romagna region in the north of the country, an area that was badly damaged by an earthquake in 2012. “We heard their cries for help and tried to get them out, but it was to no avail taste”
A man and his dog are rescued in the great floods in Italy Photo: Reuters
11 were killed, and about 20 thousand lost their homes following the unusual floods that began to hit the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy yesterday (Wednesday). This is the worst flooding the country has seen in a hundred years. As reported by The Guardian newspaper, people – mostly the elderly and disabled – were trapped in their homes, while rescuers worked through the night to save them.
Among the dead: an elderly couple who were trapped in their home in Cava – a village in the Forli-Cesana district. “We heard their cries for help,” said their neighbor, “we tried to get them out, but it was pointless.” Also, an 80-year-old man drowned in his basement after going to retrieve things, and a couple, owners of a herb production company, were affected by the floods in the field in front of their house. A 76-year-old man was killed after being hit by a landslide in his garden, while another man, about 43 years old, died after falling into a well while trying to draw water from it.
Firefighters performed about 2,000 rescue operations throughout the country, as well as in parts of the center of the Marsh region, which were also affected by the floods. Elderly people and families with children tried to protect themselves and get on the roofs of their houses – they were evacuated by helicopters. Paolo Mauni, a volunteer who works in Cesena, told the “La Nazionae” newspaper: “We worked all night in the pouring rain. In some cases we carried the elderly and disabled in our arms and rescued them with the help of boats.”
Stefano Bonacini, the president of Emilia-Romagna, compared the devastation to the earthquake that hit the region in 2012 – in which 28 people died. “The damage will be quantitatively smaller, but this is damage that costs billions of euros,” he said in an interview with Italian television. “We will rebuild everything, just like we did after the earthquake.”
Pierluigi Randi, president of “Ampro” – the association of Italian weather experts – told “La Repubblica” that this is the worst flood that Italy has seen in a hundred years. “We need to prepare ourselves, this is the climate crisis,” Randy said.
