The flood emergency continues in Emilia-Romagna.
A helicopter crashed in Belricetto di Lugo, in the province of Ravenna, while it was engaged in an intervention on power line failures caused by bad weather.
The four people on board were injured, two are serious : already extracted by the firefighters, they were taken away in an air ambulance. The aircraft would be a private vehicle of the "EliOssola" company. According to an initial reconstruction, the pilot would have attempted an emergency landing.
In the meantime, there are fourteen victims of bad weather, while thousands are displaced: in the province of Ravenna alone, 27,775 people were evacuated as a precaution.
It will continue to rain over the weekend: the expected rainfall is weak or moderate but will persist on an already very fragile territory. There are more or less 300 landslides and 500 closed roads , electricity blackouts and interruptions to telephone lines remain which further complicate the rescue.
THE DAMAGE – While the water slowly withdraws from some of the areas flooded in recent days - where hundreds of rescuers, volunteers and ordinary citizens continue to shovel and clean tirelessly - Bassa Romagna in particular is now under stress: in an area of about 100 square kilometers that is 80-90% flooded, there are about 100,000 people who are grappling with a major problem linked to the supply of food and water.
According to Coldiretti, the production of at least 400 million kilos of wheat has been lost in the flooded land, where about 1/3 of the national soft wheat is obtained , while the fruit harvest will be compromised for the next four or five years because the water left in the orchards it has suffocated the roots of the trees until they rot with the need to explant and then replant entire plantations.
THE CDM - In the meantime, the Council of Ministers which will have to decree the state of calamity is scheduled for Tuesday. The head of civil protection Fabrizio Curcio in Bologna met the institutions for the investigation of the provision. Also on Tuesday, a meeting of the Region and the social partners with the executive is scheduled to address the most urgent issues.
While awaiting the funds for reimbursements to those who have suffered damage, some relief will come from the decision of the Arera (Regulatory Authority for energy, networks and the environment) to suspend payment of bills and payment notices for water, waste, electricity and gas in favor of the populations affected by the exceptional meteorological events.
The Ravenna prosecutor's office has opened a file on the deaths from the floods.
(Unioneonline/D)