Italy Floods Result In 13 Fatalities And Force 13,000 From Their Homes

Following six months' worth of rain falling in a day and a half, more than 20 rivers in Italy have burst their banks, causing 13 fatalities and displacing thousands of people from their homes.

More bodies were discovered after nearly every river between Bologna and the north-east coast, about 115km (70 miles) distant, overflowed on Thursday.

There have been 280 landslides.

"It was a very bad 48 hours. Water and mud took over our whole village," according to Roberta Lazzarini, 71.

A torrent devastated her hometown of Botteghino di Zocca on Wednesday. It is located south of Bologna. Roberta reported that she was still terrified despite the flooded streets, homes, and gardens, BBC reported.

"I've never seen anything like that here. We were stuck and didn't know what to do. I just hope it doesn't happen again."

Firefighters helped residents flee their houses, including a 97-year-old woman who had to leave her bedroom in a rubber raft.

"Our community is broken," said Roberta's daughter, Ines, who runs the local cafe in the central square. "We felt completely cut out, isolated, some of us were truly terrified."

"We've had floods before, but it has never been this bad as far as I can remember," said Lamieri, 74, as he removed mud from his basement, where his son stores products to sell at the souvenir shop, he runs in central Bologna.

"The street turned into a river. We lost all of our stuff which was stored down here. We estimate thousands of euros in damage."

This is only one of several towns and villages in the Emilia-Romagna area that have been flooded not just by rivers but also by overflowing canals.

On Thursday, there were additional evacuations west of Ravenna, and more bodies were discovered, including a couple in a flat in the village of Russi, which was flooded hours before.

There is a growing consensus that Italy requires a national climate change response strategy.

Nello Musumeci, the minister of civil protection, claimed that tropical weather has already arrived in Italy, with 20 cm of rain dropping in just 36 hours and up to 50 cm in some places.

"Soils that remain dry for a long time end up becoming cemented, drastically limiting their capacity to absorb water," he said.

He claimed that since there hadn't been any regional dam construction for 40 years, hydraulic engineering required a fresh strategy.

The administration of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has scheduled a crisis meeting for next Tuesday.

Flooding is caused by various variables, but climate change's warming of the atmosphere increases the likelihood of extreme rainfall.

Since the start of the industrial age, the world has already warmed by around 1.1C, and temperatures will continue to climb unless governments drastically reduce emissions.

Lawyer Antonio Francesco Rizzuto, 55, and his wife were evicted from their riverside home on Tuesday night. They are currently staying with their daughter in a nearby village.

"It was something no one was expecting in these proportions," he said. "Before we left our house, the water level was getting higher by the minute. When we got back yesterday... our living room was completely submerged. We will have to throw away most of our furniture."

The possibility of the neighboring Santerno River flooding led to the cancellation of this weekend's Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Imola.

On Tuesday, there was a lot of flooding in the sections near the track where people park and watch the race.

A Bruce Springsteen rock performance was scheduled for Thursday in Ferrara, further north, despite the local catastrophe. The sold-out show had almost 50,000 fans who had purchased tickets.

The decision to move forward was criticized, with one local councilor Anna Ferraresi charging local officials with moving on despite the misery of thousands of residents in the area.

In addition to the 23 rivers that overflowed their banks, the Zena stream in Botteghino di Zocca became a furious torrent.