In a Facebook post titled ‘Bad weather, no peace for Emilia Romagna’, Bonaccini said the regional authorities were “working on counting the damage, activating the regional state of emergency and requesting a national state of emergency in order to intervene as quickly and effectively as possible to fix the damage and guarantee reimbursements”.
On Saturday, a whirlwind caused damage to property and injuries in Ravenna and Ferrara areas, while the other provinces were battered by strong winds, heavy rain and hailstorms.
The latest bout of extreme weather comes as the region is still struggling to pick itself up from the flooding and landslide emergency caused by two bouts of torrential rainfall in May, which left 15 people dead and caused billions of euros of damage to infrastructure and crops.
Bonaccini was only two weeks ago received by Meloni at Palazzo Chigi to take stock of the situation in the north-eastern region after the devastation caused by May’s extreme weather.
Meanwhile, extreme bad weather has continued to pummel other parts of northern Italy on Friday and Saturday, with a violent rainstorm accompanied by very strong winds in the Lombardy province of Cremona causing flash floods, uprooting trees and causing damage to property.
Ten villages were reportedly involved in the extreme weather event in the early hours of Saturday morning, which also included a hailstorm with hailstones the size of tennis balls.
Dozens of trees were uprooted, blocking access routes, and power cables were downed.
On Friday, extremely bad weather was also reported in Veneto and Piemonte.
The bad weather events are the flip side of the series of heatwaves that have been gripping Italy recently, with another period of intense heat forecast next week.
ANSA
