“In two days in the city of Catania they were registered 265 millimeters of rain, or about one third of the total annual rainfall that on average insist on the Catania area “. This was declared by the geologist Sergio Di Marco, president of Sigea Sicilia. Sigea (Italian Society of Environmental Geology) is a non-profit cultural association for the promotion of the role of earth sciences in protecting human health and safety, in safeguarding the quality of the natural and man-made environment and in the more responsible use of the territory and its resources.
“The frequency with which the dramatic scenes we are witnessing are repeated in these hours – adds Di Marco – unequivocally demonstrates that we must redesign the development of the territory from a new perspective, trying to remedy the errors of decades of lack of or inappropriate territorial planning ». For Di Marco “the changed conditions of the climate, which have transformed exceptional meteorological events every ten years into frequent events that occur several times a year, require further effort and planning that is not only of an emergency type”.
The regional president of Sigea says that «the fragility of the Etna area is emerging in all its drama. In particular – he adds – I would like to underline how the situations of serious criticality are occurring not only in the more urbanized areas but also in the rural ones, involving entire river basins both for what concerns the consequences of flood water flows and for the stability of the slopes. . This is a sign that the identification of risk prevention and mitigation measures they cannot be delegated to individual local administrators, but they require an overall vision that globally pays attention to the hydrogeological structure and all the components that contribute to defining it ».
“Impressive numbers”, confirms the national vice president of Sigea, Michele Orifici. «In the last 72 hours, rainfall has been recorded which, on an annual average, is relative to 6 months. And the effects are devastating », he continues with reference to what happened in Sicily. “Undoubtedly climate change is to blame, but there is also a cultural problem on which the same policy should act with targeted initiatives ”, concludes Orifici.
In the images the flooded Monte Po district.
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