A few more days of respite before the heat returns. Three days of rain and thunderstorms remain, especially in the South, before clouds and rains slowly move to the Northern territories from next Tuesday. The break from the African heat will therefore last until the end of the week, then on Ferragosto in Italy the sun and high temperatures reappear. In these hours, however, for five regions – Campania, Sicily, Calabria, Basilicata and Sardinia – the Department of Civil Protection has issued the ‘yellow alert’ with a warning of adverse weather conditions.
Meanwhile, the damage caused by thunderstorms that have already hit some areas of the country can be counted. In the aftermath of the water bomb that caused trees to fall, uprooted barriers and flooded roads and underpasses, other side effects related to bad weather are recorded in Caserta, including a chasm in the city center. Some areas in the Sorrento peninsula are also blocked and the asphalt has given way in several places. In addition, the storm that hit the town of Monteforte Irpino caused several floods: a violent river of mud and debris dragged the cars from the historic center to the valley while some families were evacuated thanks to the intervention of the firefighters. Critical situations that led the Campania Region to invoke the declaration of a state of emergency. The state of natural disaster due to damage to the agricultural sector in Valcamonica and Oltrepò Pavese – in Bresciano – was instead requested by the Lombardy regional councilor to the Government. The arrival of the rains does not seem to stop the drought, however.
There is alarm in the Po Delta, with the first cases of aquatic birds poisoned by botulinum in the Mandriole valley, in the Ravenna area, where the bacterium can proliferate due to the drying up of the reservoirs. A not new phenomenon that in 2019 was particularly serious, causing a real massacre of thousands of birds. This year, the Po Delta Park informs, the timely confirmation of the first cases of botulism among animals, considering the imminent arrival of thousands of migratory birds, led the institution to decide for the desiccation of the valley. In fact, without the marsh, botulinum – an anaerobic bacterium – does not develop and animals should keep away from it. The first animals with symptoms of intoxication have been recovered and are being treated. In the Alps, on the other hand, drought continues to bring out traces of the past. At over three thousand meters above sea level, the melting of the Ventina glacier in Cervinia returned an artillery shell from the Second World War, requiring the intervention of the army’s bomb squad. With the latest wave of bad weather, according to an analysis by Coldiretti, the count of extreme events in Italy rises where since the beginning of the hottest summer there have been 1,140 storms, water bombs, tornadoes, wind storms , hailstorms and heat waves. The report speaks of “a devastating impact with damage to agriculture that exceeds 6 billion euros, equal to 10% of national production. animal feed, 20% for milk in stables, 30% for durum wheat for pasta over 1/5 of the production of common wheat, 30% for rice, 15% for fruit burned by temperatures of 40 degrees, 20% for mussels and clams killed by the lack of water exchange in the Po Delta, where – points out Coldiretti – the areas of ‘dead water’ widen, assaults by insects and grasshoppers with tens of thousands of hectares devastated. The harvest that has just begun in Italy is also worrying with the prospect of a 10% drop in grapes while – continues Coldiretti – there is alarm in the olive groves with the heat that threatens to bring down production yields “.
Source: Ansa
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