Pope shuts Vatican fountains amid drought

This is the first time the Vatican will switch off its famous fountains

Vatican City, July 25: Amid a prolonged drought in many parts of Italy, the Vatican has started turning off its famous fountains, including two Baroque masterpieces in St Peter’s Square.

Suffocating summer heat has followed two years of lower-than-average rainfall in Rome, forcing the Italian capital to close drinking fountains and consider the prospect of water rationing.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said it was the first time authorities in the spiritual home of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics could remember being forced to turn off the fountains. “This decision is very much in line with the pope’s thinking on ecology: you can’t waste and sometimes you have to be willing to make a sacrifice,” Mr Burke said.

The Pope laid out his ecological fears in a 2015 encyclical, which denounced wasteful practices and highlighted the importance of clean drinking water. Caring for the planet and its resources is an important issue for Francis, who demanded swift action by world leaders in the first ever papal document dedicated to the environment.

All 100 Vatican fountains will be turned off gradually over the coming days.

The prolonged drought has hit two-thirds of farmland and has cost Italian agriculture over $2.3 billion, BBC reported. This spring has been Italy’s third-driest in 60 years. Rome itself has suffered two years of lower-thanaverage rainfall and later this week city authorities will decide whether to introduce drastic water rationing.

The drought has affected many other areas of Italy. A state of emergency was declared in two northern provinces. —