Water rising again in flood-stricken Venice
WATER HAS been rising again in Venice, just three days after the city experienced its worst flooding in more than 50 years.
Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said for safety reasons he was forced to ask police to block off St Mark’s Square, which was already under knee-high water yesterday.
Workers in thigh-high boots began removing trestle platforms used by the public to cross the square without getting wet.
The city had its second-worst flooding on record on Tuesday when the water level reached more than 74 inches above sea level.
It prompted the Italian government to declare a state of emergency, with 85 per cent of the city under water.
On Thursday, the government approved 20 million euros in funding to help repair the most urgent damage.
Brugnaro said the damage was estimated at hundreds of millions of euros and blamed climate change for the “dramatic situation” in the lagoon city.
He called for the speedy completion of the city’s longdelayed Moses flood-defence project. The devastating floods have reignited a long debate on Moses, a multibillion-euro flood-defence project under construction since 2003.
The scheme has not yet been activated – delayed a number of times due to corruption scandals, cost overruns and environmentalist opposition over its impact on Venice’s ecosystem. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte described the flooding as “a blow to the heart of our country”.
The water reached 1.87 metres above sea level on Tuesday, the second-highest level ever recorded in the city.
Venice was hit by its worst flooding in 1966 when water levels rose by 1.93 metres.