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Landslide warnings in Italy as more rain forecast for flood-hit regions

As rain returned to northern and central Italy on Friday, the civil protection agency issued further red alerts for parts of Emilia Romagna due to the risk of landslides and rising river levels.

Published: 19 May 2023 17:15 CEST
Landslide warnings in Italy as more rain forecast for flood-hit regions
A man covered in mud walks across a muddy street in Faenza, Emilia Romagna, after flooding left 14 dead and thousands displaced. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)

After days of heavy rain resulted in deadly flooding in northern Italy, the short-term forecasts showed few signs of improvement.

More rain was forecast for the northeastern Emilia-Romagna region in the coming days, after this week’s floods claimed 14 lives and caused widespread devastation.

READ ALSO: Italy’s flood death toll rises to 14 as government urged to act on climate

Parts of the northeastern region remain on the highest-level ‘red’ alert for extreme weather events on Saturday, Italy’s civil protection agency confirmed.

Other parts of the region, along with Piedmont, Calabria, and Sicily, were placed on a medium-level amber alert.

Parts of the Marche region, south of Emilia Romagna, were under a lower-level yellow alert after it also suffered flooding in some areas this week.

The civil protection agency said the risk of landslides was considered high in Emilia Romagna, where there are also concerns that the levels of already swollen river levels will rise further.

There have already been 290 landslides reported in the region this week, officials in the Emilia Romagna region said on Friday.

The number of floods had reached 58, in 43 municipalities. 544 roads remained totally closed.

Landslides were also possible in parts of the Piedmont region, the agency said, where two provinces were under a lower-level ‘yellow’ alert.

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No weather warnings were issued elsewhere in the country, though it was set to be another wet and windy weekend with rain forecast everywhere from Turin and Milan in the north to Rome in the centre and across the southern regions of Puglia and Basilicata.

Forecasters also said sirocco winds from northern Africa would carry sand from the Sahara across much of Italy in the coming days, which combined with the rain was likely to leave everything coated in yellow-brown dust.

Long-range forecasts predicted unusually rainy and unsettled weather was likely to continue across Italy until at least the end of May.

Rain would then be followed by intense heat at the start of summer due to anticyclones moving in from Africa, forecasters said.

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WEATHER

IN PICTURES: ‘Exceptional’ Sahara dust cloud hits Europe

An "exceptional" dust cloud from the Sahara is choking parts of Europe, the continent's climate monitor said on Monday, causing poor air quality and coating windows and cars in grime.

Published: 8 April 2024 14:15 CEST
IN PICTURES: 'Exceptional' Sahara dust cloud hits Europe

Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said the latest plume, the third of its kind in recent weeks, was bringing hazy conditions to southern Europe and would sweep northward as far as Scandinavia.

Mark Parrington, senior scientist at Copernicus, said the latest event was related to a weather pattern that has brought warmer weather to parts of Europe in recent days.

“While it is not unusual for Saharan dust plumes to reach Europe, there has been an increase in the intensity and frequency of such episodes in recent years, which could be potentially attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation patterns,” he said.

This latest episode has caused air quality to deteriorate in several countries, Copernicus said.

The European Union’s safe threshold for concentrations of PM10 — coarser particles like sand and dust that that can irritate the nose and throat — has already been exceeded in some locations.

A picture taken on April 8, 2024 shows a rapeseed field under thick sand dust blown in from the Sahara, giving the sky a yellowish appearance near Daillens, western Switzerland. – An “exceptional” dust cloud from the Sahara is choking parts of Europe, the continent’s climate monitor said, causing poor air quality and coating windows and cars in grime. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

The worst affected was the Iberian Peninsula in Spain but lesser air pollution spikes were also recorded in parts of Switzerland, France and Germany.

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Local authorities in southeastern and southern France announced that the air pollution threshold was breached on Saturday.

They advised residents to avoid intense physical activity, particularly those with heart or respiratory problems.

The dust outbreak was expected to reach Sweden, Finland and northwest Russia before ending on Tuesday with a shift in weather patterns, Copernicus said.

The Sahara emits between 60 and 200 million tonnes of fine dust every year, which can travel thousands of kilometres (miles), carried by winds and certain meteorological conditions.

The Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of northwest Africa saw just 12 days within a 90-day period from December to February where skies were free of Saharan dust, the local weather agency Aemet had reported.

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