The government will allocate 30 million euros for the floods in northern Italy, which have already caused 8 deaths

The Government of Italy will allocate 30 million euros to repair the damage caused by the severe floods that submerged entire villages and crops in Emilia Romagna (north), causing 8 deaths, even if the number of victims and damage could increase in the next few hours.

Most of Emilia Romagna will continue on red alert for bad weather and four other regions of Italy will do so on orange alert, while the number of displaced people reaches 13,000 people after the overflowing of twenty rivers.

For this reason, the Italian Executive will hold a Council of Ministers on Tuesday next week in which an emergency fund of 20 million euros will be activated, which will add to the 10 million approved at the beginning of the month after another day of inopportune rains, he informed at the press conference the Minister of Civil Protection, Nello Musumeci.

Musumeci held an emergency meeting on Wednesday afternoon together with the heads of the other dicasteries evaluate the damage and decree some urgent measures in the face of the disaster, in which viaducts and highways collapsed, railway services were interrupted and hundreds of structures were damaged.

Agriculture

Among other measures, the Ministries of Justice and the Economy have proposed suspend tax obligations and legal proceedings pending in affected areas.

For his part, aid will also be studied for temporary workers and companies in the agricultural sector, deeply affected by the catastrophe, even if according to the Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, Francesco Lollobrigida avoided quantifying the damages of an event “still in progress”.

According to Coldiretti, the main Italian agricultural association, thousands of hectares of land planted with fruit and cereals have been flooded in Romagna and Marche.

As for the victims, the figure remains at 8 people, even if some local media speak of a ninth person who died in the province of Forlì-Cesena, where the bodies of an elderly couple swept away by the water in Ronta de Cesena were found this morning.

The president of the Emilia Romagna region, Stefano Bonaccini, announced that they had to be 13,000 inhabitants evacuatedof which 3,000 in the Bologna area, 5,000 in the Faenza area and 5,000 in the Ravenna area, “but that number is destined to increase”.

At the same time the closure of schools was decreed and the population was asked to do so do not leave your homes if they are not threatened by floods.

The damages

In cities like Faenza, Forlì and Ravenna, dozens of people had to be rescued after being trapped in their homes or taking refuge on rooftops, the Civil Protection said.

“It was like a new earthquake on the eve of the catastrophic event in Emilia Romagna in 2012, whose anniversary is about to take place. About forty municipalities were flooded, structures destroyed, railways interrupted, provincial highways practically demolished, a bridge collapsed”.

The floods have left nearly 50,000 users without electricity, while another 100,000 have problems with mobile phones and another 10,000 with landlines.

Furthermore The Formula 1 Grand Prix has been cancelled that would have been held this weekend in Ímola, after the flooding of the circuit, and the authorities will decide whether a Bruce Springsteen concert will finally be held in Ferrara, scheduled for Thursday.

700 firefighters, 300 police officers and a thousand carabinieri operate in the area, as well as 220 volunteers from the Red Cross, 100 from the Socorro Alpino and about 340 from the Civil Protection.

The floods have left nearly 50,000 users without electricity, while another 100,000 have problems with mobile phones and another 10,000 with landlines.