Residents count cost of a climate risk hotspot

Damage to northern region ignites debate in a country where just 6% are insured against natural disaster

Angela Giuffrida

It was 2am when parish priest Giovanni Samorì was woken by a phone call from the mayor of Traversara ordering him to start ringing the church bells. The pealing now forms part of the civil protection procedure deployed by many Italian towns to warn residents of impending calamity. It worked: the evacuation of Traversara’s 480 residents was swift and, despite the priest’s foreboding, there were no deaths. But, a few weeks on from the flooding of 19 September, the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna was struck by its third devastating storm in less than 18 months. This time the hamlet on the banks of the Lamone River, about 40 minutes from the regional capital of Bologna, was all but wiped out. In its place is a debate about insurance coverage…

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Guardian Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, 25 October 2024

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