Saturday evening the heavens opened and So much water came down that hadn’t been seen since the last flood, more than twenty years ago. We are in Valle d’Aostathe most affected region. But we are also in Piedmontespecially in the Canavese area, that is, the territory that goes from Ivrea to Turin up to the Aosta Valley border.
A disaster. Torrential, violent rain. Torrents that suddenly become rushing rivers and “eat” pieces of roads, small bridges, drag away cars, rocks, tree trunks. Floods. The efforts of rescuers – civil protection, firefighters, mountain rescue, foresters, Guardia di Finanza – to save people in difficulty or to manage hundreds of people to be evacuated from isolated points, starting from Cogne.
And on this side of the Alps, despite everything we can say we are lucky, because we have no victims. It was much worse across the border: between France and Switzerland this wave of bad weather cost the lives of seven people.
The isolated country
That things would get bad, a Cogneeveryone understood it after the first ten minutes of water, around dinner time. It was raining too hard for anything to happen. And indeed. The fury of the Grand Eyvia river has taken away a long piece of the only road that leads to the village. So everyone is isolated and hundreds of people have to be evacuated with an airlift (between Cogne and Aymavilles) that worked yesterday all day, but that wasn’t enough.
While television and social media relaunched the impressive images of the cars carried away by the waves of water and mud, the mayor Franco Allera was with the rescuers to organize the exit of those who had to go down to the valley. «We have already brought down so many, at least 300», he said himself late in the afternoon. «But I think there are still at least as many left to bring, if not more. And then we have to intervene on an aqueduct that has been torn away, because at the moment there is a part of the country that has been left without water.” The most urgent problem, however, remains the interrupted road which apparently cannot be resolved in a few days. Starting from this condition, what will happen to the thousand inhabitants of Cogne in the coming weeks?
Floods and damages in Cervinia
Not far from there, the Marmore flood caused damage in the center of Cerviniaa well-known location in the municipality of Valtournenche. The water has invaded the streets, there are many shops, garages, warehouses and condominiums flooded, damaged electrical systems. “We’re talking about millions and millions of euros in damages” evaluates Massimo Chatrian, deputy mayor of Valtournenche.
Even the Dora Baltea has flooded in some parts of its course. And about thirty tourists hosted in the Gran Paradiso campsite in Cogne and now in a hotel in the Valnontey hamlet have had to flee. The hoteliers of the Aosta Valley, even outside the flood zone, have competed to host the evacuees.
The symbolic place of this flood, in Piedmont, is Noasca, in Val D’Orco, 75 kilometers from Turin. Videos of the waterfall were shot there which until Saturday was a tourist attraction and which suddenly became a frightening wall of water. The firefighters accompanied on foot, over a landslide and towards a reception center set up for the night, 35 guests of a restaurant that ended up in the water route. That landslide blocked traffic on the state road that leads to Gran Paradiso, in Val D’Orco, and was the reason for isolation, until yesterday evening, for Noasca and Ceresole.
Difficulties also in Val di Lanzo and fear of a whirlwind that uncovered a house in Busano, also in the Canavese area. At the foot of Monte Rosa, on the Macugnaga side, the stream that crosses the town overflowed; isolated hamlets in Chialamberto, a critical situation also in Verbano Cusio Ossola, where 120 people were evacuated from Alpe Veglia, and in some refuges in Alta Valsesia, with tourists stranded.
The president of the Region, Alberto Cirio, says he spoke with the head of Civil Protection, Fabrizio Curcio, “for the request for a state of emergency”. Curcio himself had a meeting last night with the president of Valle D’Aosta, Renzo Testolin, and the leaders of the regional civil protection.
The situation beyond the Alps
The worst situation, in Swissfaced it in Alta Valmaggia, in Canton Ticino. Three deaths (a fourth person missing in Val Lavizzara) and very extensive damage, especially in Cevio where the Visletto bridge collapsed. To give you an idea: the flow of the Maggia River went from 25 cubic meters per second to 2,000 in a few hours. There are no longer any connections between the lower and upper Valmaggia and communications are currently down. Further north — where the Rhone overflowed in several areas of the Canton of Valais, flooding a highway and a railway line — the body of a man was recovered, but it is not clear whether he died because of the floods. And then France: in the Aube department a tree fell due to bad weather, overwhelming a car. Three dead and one seriously injured.
