Venice flooding highest in a decade
Violent weather in Italy kills at least 11 people
Violent thunderstorms, small tornadoes that blew roofs off homes and hurricane-force winds lashed Italy from Piedmont to Sicily early this week, leaving at least 11 people dead, many injured, and firefighters and other rescue workers scrambling to respond to emergency calls.
In Venice, ferocious winds drove the high tide to more than 61 inches above average sea level Monday, one of the highest levels ever recorded, plunging much of the city under water. It was the highest flood in a decade in Venice, although far short of the record, more than 76 inches above sea level, set in November 1966.
Venetians and tourists tottered on raised walkways throughout the city, while others waded through thigh-high water. Many shops and restaurants flooded when barriers across doorways failed to keep the water out.
Some tourists decided to go for a swim in the famed St. Mark’s Square, in front of the city’s cathedral.
The cathedral itself was damaged by flooding as water submerged part of the floor in the central part of the basilica for only the fifth recorded time in its nine-century history, officials said. The water covered “several dozens of square meters” of the marble pavement in front of the altar of the Madonna Nicopeia, a 12th century icon, and submerged the baptistery, the board responsible for the building said.
The situation was equally dramatic in other Italian regions.
Winds reached 180 km/h in Liguria, on Italy’s northwest coast, one of the hardest-hit regions. The Italian news agency ANSA described a “massacre of yachts” in the town of Rapallo, near Genoa, where dozens of boats moored in the port broke loose and crashed against the shore, or were driven out to sea.
A storm destroyed the road to Portofino, isolating the picturesque coastal town and stranding residents and tourists. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in towns in the mountainous Trentino-Alto Adige region, northwest of Venice, after rivers rose over their banks.
In some places, hillsides soaked by heavy rain gave way.
The operational command of the Civil Protection Department met late Monday to coordinate and deploy disaster relief teams throughout the country, where winds and rains continued with force Tuesday.