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FLOODS

Italy unveils €2 billion package for flooded northeast

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday announced a €2 billion aid package to help northeastern areas affected by floods that killed 14 people, displaced thousands and left swathes of farmland submerged.

Published: 23 May 2023 17:04 CEST
A fruit farmer considers his flooded property on May 20, 2023 in the village of Ghibullo, near Ravenna.
A fruit farmer considers his flooded property on May 20, 2023 in the village of Ghibullo, near Ravenna. Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP.

After an emergency cabinet meeting, she announced help for households, businesses, farms, transport systems, schools, healthcare services and the tourism industry, while cautioning that the full extent of the damage has still to be determined.

“This first measure provides for a budget of over two billion euros for areas affected by the floods,” said Meloni, who visited the worst-hit areas of the Emilia Romagna region on Sunday.

READ ALSO: Over 23,000 people still without a home after northern Italy floods

“We clearly know that we are talking about emergencies, that there will be a reconstruction phase in which we are not yet able to quantify the overall need and the damage,” she added.

Some areas still remain under water after six months’ worth of rain fell in the space of 36 hours one week ago.

As of Monday, 23,000 people were still unable to return to their homes.

Residents of Castel Bolognese in Emilia Romagna take shelter in a sports hall after being evacuated from their homes.

Residents of Castel Bolognese in Emilia Romagna take shelter in a sports hall after being evacuated from their homes. Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP.

Almost half the money has been earmarked to help employees and the self-employed, while there are also funds to help businesses, particularly exporters, and farmers, including those who have to buy new machinery.

Meloni, who returned early from the G7 summit in Japan to meet residents at the weekend, said that businesses and taxpayers in affected areas would also benefit from a suspension of tax and mortgage payments.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: Why has flooding in northern Italy been so devastating?

The floods that wreaked damage across the southeast corner of Emilia Romagna were the second to hit the area within weeks, following a deluge earlier in May that killed two people.

In the most recent disaster, almost two dozen rivers burst their banks.

Water flooded entire neighbourhoods in the wealthy region, which boasts both rich agricultural farmland and industry.

A man stands by a collapsed railway bridge washed away by floodwaters in Sant'Agata sul Santerno on May 21, 2023.

A man stands by a collapsed railway bridge washed away by floodwaters in Sant’Agata sul Santerno on May 21, 2023. Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP.

‘Lost everything’

Schools reopened in Ravenna on Tuesday, although high schools in nearby Forli remained closed until Wednesday due to continuing disruption on the road network.

The region estimates that damage worth more than 620 million euros has been caused to infrastructure, including roads and railways.

Agricultural lobby Confagricoltura said at least 10 million fruit trees will have to be uprooted, and possibly as many as 40 million.

“There are people who have lost everything,” said the head of the Emilia Romagna region, Stefano Bonaccini.

READ ALSO: ‘I lost everything’: Dazed residents clean up after northern Italy floods

“Some sectors have been dramatically affected,” he told reporters in a joint appearance with Meloni.

Furniture is piled up on a bed of a flooded house on May 20, 2023 in the village of Ghibullo, near Ravenna.

Furniture is piled up on a bed of a flooded house on May 20, 2023 in the village of Ghibullo, near Ravenna. Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP.

“I am thinking of agriculture even more than tourism but both are examples of sectors that employ many seasonal workers.”

Some 14 mostly inactive bombs dating from World War I or World War II also emerged out of the floodwaters, which were “all blown up as a precaution” by the army, a local military source said.

Italy has been beset by a number of extreme weather events in the past year, which many people – including former premier Mario Draghi – have linked to climate change.

A dozen people died after flash floods in the Marche region in September, while a landslide on the island of Ischia in November killed 12.

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CLIMATE CRISIS

‘Extreme’ climate blamed for world’s worst wine harvest in 62 years

World wine production dropped 10 percent last year, the biggest fall in more than six decades, because of "extreme" climate changes, the body that monitors the trade said on Thursday.

Published: 26 April 2024 08:48 CEST
'Extreme' climate blamed for world's worst wine harvest in 62 years

“Extreme environmental conditions” including droughts, fires and other problems with climate were mostly to blame for the drastic fall, said the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) that covers nearly 50 wine producing countries.

Australia and Italy suffered the worst, with 26 and 23 percent drops. Spain lost more than a fifth of its production. Harvests in Chile and South Africa were down by more than 10 percent.

The OIV said the global grape harvest was the worst since 1961, and worse even than its early estimates in November.

In further bad news for winemakers, customers drank three per cent less wine in 2023, the French-based intergovernmental body said.

Director John Barker highlighted “drought, extreme heat and fires, as well as heavy rain causing flooding and fungal diseases across major northern and southern hemisphere wine producing regions.”

Although he said climate problems were not solely to blame for the drastic fall, “the most important challenge that the sector faces is climate change.

“We know that the grapevine, as a long-lived plant cultivated in often vulnerable areas, is strongly affected by climate change,” he added.

France bucked the falling harvest trend, with a four percent rise, making it by far the world’s biggest wine producer.

Wine consumption last year was however at its lowest level since 1996, confirming a fall-off over the last five years, according to the figures.

The trend is partly due to price rises caused by inflation and a sharp fall in wine drinking in China – down a quarter – due to its economic slowdown.

The Portuguese, French and Italians remain the world’s biggest wine drinkers per capita.

Barker said the underlying decrease in consumption is being “driven by demographic and lifestyle changes. But given the very complicated influences on global demand at the moment,” it is difficult to know whether the fall will continue.

“What is clear is that inflation is the dominant factor affecting demand in 2023,” he said.

Land given over to growing grapes to eat or for wine fell for the third consecutive year to 7.2 million hectares (17.7 million acres).

But India became one of the global top 10 grape producers for the first time with a three percent rise in the size of its vineyards.

France, however, has been pruning its vineyards back slightly, with its government paying winemakers to pull up vines or to distil their grapes.

The collapse of the Italian harvest to its lowest level since 1950 does not necessarily mean there will be a similar contraction there, said Barker.

Between floods and hailstones, and damp weather causing mildew in the centre and south of the country, the fall was “clearly linked to meteorological conditions”, he said.

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