WORLD
Severe flooding in Italy kills 2; drought persists
After a day and a half of uninterrupted rain, riverbeds left parched by drought overflowed in Italy’s populated Emilia-Romagna region, killing at least two people.
In Ravenna, a cyclist was swept away by floodwaters, and a landslide near Imola killed a resident. Missing again.
The drought has drained Italy’s main river, the Po. The river supports agriculture in the broad Po River Valley before draining into the Adriatic Sea east of Bologna in Emilia-Romagna.
The extreme downpour swelled the Po by 1.5 meters (nearly 60 inches) in 24 hours, and smaller rivers in Emilia-Romagna overflowed, damaging property and farmland. 450 were evicted.
The Coldiretti agricultural organization said the severe storms have compounded the drought by flooding vineyards and olive groves.
At 43% capacity, Lake Garda, an agricultural basin in Lombardy and Veneto, is near historic lows.