Bologna, 5 May 2023 – Due elderly dead, as many investigative files opened by the prosecutors of Bologna and Ravenna, a thousand displaced. The day after the flood, while in the clear sky it shines mockingly almost summer sun and the inevitable controversies on the prevention and management of the emergency are consumed, in the affected areas it is time to count the damage and think about restarting. Saving homes, crops, animals on farms, factories or even just the memories of a lifetime submerged in mud and debris. If someone made a mistake, the investigations of the two prosecutors will establish it.
Update: Flood in Emilia Romagna: the news of 5 May
Two files opened after the death of Enrico Rivola, a 78-year-old pensioner from Fontanelice (Bologna), trapped in the collapse of the house where he lived which crumbled due to a landslide. A brick coffin. And of Remo Bianconcinithe 80-year-old overwhelmed on Wednesday morning by the waters of the Senio river in Castel Bolognese (Ravenna) while pedaling on a road which, according to the first reports, had been closed as a precaution precisely because of the risk of flooding.
For Rivola, who leaves behind a sister, the mountains that he never wanted to abandon in life have become his tomb: he lived for rent in via Casolana, in the complex of three buildings of a farm between Fontanelice and Casola Valsenio, but the landslide he only wiped out his dwelling by dodging the stable with cows. In the neighboring province, however, Bianconcini met his death on an embankment that suddenly opened under his feet and in the village no one knows for sure why he was there, in via Biancanigo. According to some to go and monitor the garden that is in those parts, for others to chase his dog.
The good weather of yesterday led to the passage of the alert status from red to orange. But the passage of color remains only a tone on the palette, fear now runs fast on the ridges of an Apennines as wonderful as it is fragile: with the mountains soaked in water like sponges, the risk is now that of landslides and micro-landslides and there are so many roads closed due to landslides or invaded by debris both in the Bologna and Ravenna areas. Yesterday the breakages of the Lamone (Bagnacavallo area, in the Ravenna area) continued, not yet resolved. The water level in the countryside was high, it even touched the city centre. On the other hand, the breaking of the left bank of the Sillaro was almost resolved; small criticalities were detected on the Quaderna and on the Senio, where some evacuations were made. Governor Stefano Bonaccini, his deputy Irene Priolo and the director of the regional agency for territorial security and civil protection, Rita Nicolini met the mayors of the territories involved in the morning, in two separate summits, first in Faenza (Ravenna), then in Imola (Bologna). Yesterday morning the railway section between Lavezzola and Mezzano on the Ferrara-Ravenna line was reactivated, while trains still stopped between Russi and Lugo, on the Castelbolognese-Ravenna line, awaiting the restoration of the infrastructure, damaged by the floods. Finally, between Castelbolognese and Ravenna, the connection was guaranteed by means of replacement buses.