Isolated towns, aqueducts out of order, houses and warehouses submerged by water and mud. In Piedmont, to repair the “extreme urgency”, damages are estimated at 25 million euros. The president Alberto Cirio signed the request for a state of emergency, addressed to Prime Minister Meloni, the Minister of Civil Protection, Nello Musumeci, and the head of the Civil Protection department, Fabrizio Curcio. And it is waiting for its recognition.
Counting the damages
The damage count is not finished yet. To complete the inspections it is necessary to wait for the river levels to return to assess the erosion of the slopes and banks and have a complete picture of the situation. Certainly, the areas most affected by the rainfall are the Anzasca Valley and the Divedro Valley in the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, the Alta Val Sesia in the province of Vercelli. While in the metropolitan city of Turin the most affected remain: Alta Valle di Susa, Valli di Lanzo, Valli Orco, Soana and Canavese. The only municipality of Noasca, where rainfall has been recorded 172mm of water«needs 10 million» to restart, in the words of its mayor.
State of emergency
«We were hit by a very violent phenomenonwhich fortunately did not cause any casualties, and which we managed to contain thanks to the professionalism of our teams and also to the safety works carried out in recent years – declared Governor Cirio –. I would like to thank those who have been on the field for days with their work to support the affected areas and to allow the safety of roads and rivers to be restored». «In a few hours – remarked the Councilor for Civil Protection, Marco Gabusi – about 200 millimeters of rain fell which, even more so considering the mountain territory involved, constitute a true exceptionality». In the meantime, the Councilor for the Mountains, Marco Gallo, is organizing a meeting with the mountain unions of Valli Orco and Soana, Valli di Lanzo and Valli dell’Ossola to study possible interventions that go beyond those related to the request for a state of emergency. «That of the climate changes – Gallo observed – is one of the most complex challenges to face, especially in a Region with the orography of Piedmont, which often accentuates the phenomena, making the hydrogeological stability of the entire system more fragile».
Hydrogeological instability
The mayor of Turin, Stephen Lo Russo he raised his tone: «I believe that as soon as possible, and this event demonstrates it, we need to intervene in a very important way on the issue of hydrogeological instability and above all for mitigation works. We need courageous choices, we need important planning choices, we don’t need amnesties or operations to bring things up to standard that don’t need to be brought up to standard – he continued – instead we need to radically change the paradigm of the culture of land protection and I believe that this must be done first and foremost by politics. This time there were no victims, people were saved, the alert mechanism worked, it allowed people in danger to be evacuated but this alone is not enough: we must radically change the way in which man relates to the land”.
