Venice ‘is on its knees’ after the worst flooding in 53 years
VENICE, Italy — The worst flooding in Venice in more than 50 years prompted calls Wednesday to better protect the historic city from rising sea levels as officials calculated hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
The water reached 6.14 feet above average sea level Tuesday, the second-highest level ever recorded in the city and just 21⁄2 inches lower than the historic 1966 flood. Another wave of exceptionally high water followed Wednesday.
“Venice is on its knees,” Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said on Twitter. “St. Mark’s Basilica has sustained serious damage, like the entire city and its islands.”
A man in his 70s was apparently electrocuted on the barrier island of Pellestrina when he tried to start a pump in his dwelling, said Danny Carrella, an official on the island of 3,500 inhabitants.
In Venice, the crypt beneath St. Mark’s Basilica was inundated for only the second time in its history. Damage was also reported at the Ca’ Pesaro modern art gallery, where a short circuit set off a fire, and at La Fenice theater, where authorities turned off electricity as a precaution after the control room was flooded.
Italy’s culture minister, Dario Franceschini, said no damage had been reported to art collections in museums throughout the city. Many sites remained closed to tourists.
“I have often seen St. Mark’s Square covered with water,” Venice’s patriarch, Monsignor Francesco Moraglia, told reporters. “Yesterday there were waves that seemed to be the seashore.”
Brugnaro called on Rome to declare a state of emergency.
The flooding was caused by southerly winds that pushed a high tide, exacerbated a full moon, into the city.
The sea level in Venice is 4 inches higher than it was 50 years ago, according to the city’s tide office.