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VIOLENCE

Palermo woes deepen as flares rain down on players

Palermo's Serie A relegation woes deepened in a trouble-hit 3-0 defeat to Lazio that saw the match stopped twice by the referee as rocket flares came dangerously close to hitting players.

Palermo woes deepen as flares rain down on players
Lazio player Antonio Candreva narrowly escaped an exploding flare. Photo: Michal Cizek/AFP

German veteran Miroslav Klose claimed his 50th and 51st Serie A goals and Felipe Anderson put the icing on the cake as Lazio moved one place up to eighth, albeit 31 points behind leaders Juventus and 11 off the European qualifying places.

For teammate Antonio Candreva, it was a far more frightening affair.

The Italy midfielder quickly covered his ears in panic after narrowly escaping stepping on an exploding flare as angry Palermo fans vented their frustration amid fears of relegation.

Klose told Sky Sport afterwards: “This shouldn't be happening in football… but you can perhaps understand their anger because they obviously don't want to be relegated to Serie B.”

“Their team has a lot of young players, so it's difficult (for them). We have to think of the fans, because they buy their tickets.”

The Sicilians are battling to beat relegation to Italy's second division and tensions had already boiled over prior to the fixture when rival fans clashed outside the stadium.

According to a report on Gazzetta dello Sport's website, several Palermo fans stabbed a Lazio fan as he sat in a bar.

The incident sparked a mass brawl, with police called in to stop fans throwing missiles and flares at each other before arresting five local men.

Lazio took a 2-0 lead by the 15th minute thanks to a double from 2014 World Cup hero Klose, who spun a loose ball into the net on 10 minutes and nodded the rebound from Keita Balde's cross home from close range five minutes later.

With Palermo struggling, it all got too much for the team's hardline ultras.

They began lighting and throwing flares on to the pitch, with firecrackers setting explosions echoing throughout the stadium and prompting referee Andrea Gervasoni to halt the game for two minutes in the 24th minute.

In Italy, referees have the power to halt matches to allow stewards to restore order, and stop them altogether in extreme circumstances.

When flares began to land on the pitch again after the interval, one exploding metres away from Candreva as he chased a ball deep in Palermo territory in the 14th minute of the second half, Gervasoni stopped the match again.

Discussions were held with officials and players pitchside, before the proceedings resumed five minutes later.

Brazilian forward Anderson added to Palermo's woes when he powered down the right to beat Stefano Sorrentino in the 72nd minute.

There were no further interruptions, but for the remainder Sorrentino was operating in a cloud of smoke generated from exploding crackers.

It was Lazio's first win after appointing Simone Inzaghi, the brother of former AC Milan striker and coach Filippo Inzaghi, following the sacking of Stefano Pioli.

It will go down as a memorable start in Serie A for Inzaghi, but Klose added: “He hasn't added anything extra with respect to Pioli. It was the same formation, and we all know each other.

“But let's hope this gives us some momentum. For him (Inzaghi), it's a good start.”

Palermo, who have sacked a number of coaches this season, dropped back into the relegation zone albeit on the same points (28) as fourth-from-bottom Carpi.

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CLIMATE

Sicily braces for rare Mediterranean cyclone as storms continue

Sicily's residents are bracing for the arrival of a cyclone later on Thursday, the second this week after a deadly storm hammered the Italian island, killing three people.

Sicily braces for rare Mediterranean cyclone as storms continue
Cars and market stalls submerged in Catania, Sicily, after heavy rain hit the city and province on october 26th. Photo: STRINGER/ANSA/AFP

A rare tropical-style cyclone known as a “medicane” is set to reach Sicily’s eastern coast and the tip of mainland Calabria between Thursday evening and Friday morning, according to Italian public research institute ISPRA.

“Heavy rainfall and strong sea storms are expected on the coast, with waves of significant height over 4.5 metres (15 feet),” ISPRA said.

The Italian Department for Civil Protection placed eastern Sicily under a new amber alert for Thursday and the highest-level red lert for Friday in anticipation of the storm’s arrival, after almost a week of extreme weather in the area.

A total of three people have been reported killed in flooding on the island this week amid storms that left city streets and squares submerged.

On Tuesday, parts of eastern Sicily were ravaged by a cyclone following days of heavy rains that had sparked flooding and mudslides, killing three people.

Television images from Tuesday showed flooding in the emergency room of Catania’s Garibaldi-Nesima hospital, while rain was seen pouring from the roof inside offices at the city courtroom.

Thursday’s storm was set to hit the same area around Catania, Sicily’s second-largest city, even as residents were still mucking out their streets and homes.

Schools were closed in Syracuse and Catania, where the local government ordered public offices and courts closed through Friday.

The mayor of Catania on Tuesday shut down all businesses and urged residents to stay home.

Antonio Navarra, president of the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper this week that Sicily was at the centre of extreme weather events, including heatwaves and cyclones.

“We’re trying to understand if, with climate change, these phenomena will become even more intense, if they will change their character as their frequency intensifies,” he said.

READ ALSO: Climate crisis: The Italian cities worst affected by flooding and heatwaves

Cars submerged in Catania, Sicily, after storms hit the city and province on October 26th. Photo: STRINGER/ANSA/AFP

Other forecasters have said the “medicane” is the latest evidence that the climate crisis is irreversibly tropicalising the Mediterranean, after the island’s south-eastern city of Syracuse this August recorded a temperature of 48.8C, the hottest ever seen in Europe.

“Sicily is tropicalising and the upcoming medicane is perhaps the first of this entity, but it certainly won’t be the last,” Christian Mulder, a professor of ecology and climate emergency at the University of Catania, told The Guardian on Wednesday.

“We are used to thinking that this type of hurricane and cyclone begins in the oceans and not in a closed basin like the Mediterranean. But this is not the case,” he said.

“This medicane is forming due to the torrid climate of north Africa and the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The Aegean Sea has a temperature of 3C higher than the average, while the Ionian Sea has a temperature of almost 2C higher than the average. The result is a pressure cooker.”

The storm is expected to leave the area between Saturday and Sunday.

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