National day of mourning after Sardinia cyclone
(By Elisa Cecchi) (ANSA) – Cagliari, November 22 – Sardinia faced a new weather alert on Friday, on the day Italy mourned victims of Monday’s deadly cyclone that tore through the Italian island leaving 16 dead.
A cyclone ravaged the Italian island on Monday, killing 16 and destroying houses, roads and bridges.
A shepherd, Giovanni Farre, is still missing.
The civil protection agency issued a 24-hour weather alert for the Italian island starting on Friday night, when heavy rains have been forecast across north-west Sardinia and areas in the centre.
Gale winds have also been forecast along with snow in mountain areas.
Over 2,000 people on the island had to evacuate their homes after extreme rainfall inundated houses and washed out roads and bridges.
The number of people still displaced after the devastation inflicted by Cyclone Cleopatra are now down to 430 of whom 230 are residing in emergency shelters, authorities said on Friday.
Olbia, a town of 50,000 people, was among the worst hit by the storm along with the areas around Nuoro, Oristano, Orasta and Gallura.
The Italian government has declared a state of emergency.
On Friday, EU Commissioner for Regional and Urban Policy Johannes Hahn said the EU would consider providing more funding to the region after massive damage caused by the cyclone.
”We are ready to change the regional programme if necessary’, Hahn told ANSA after Sardinia Governor Ugo Cappellacci asked to revise the allocation of European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) following the cyclone.
”We will look at the proposal and we will do everything possible to take into consideration the extraordinary situation in Sardinia”.
The government has approved an amendment to the 2014 draft budget currently going through the Senate to allocate 103 million euros for cyclone-torn areas.
The ultimate cost of the damage has yet to be estimated.
Meanwhile two prosecutors’ offices in Sardinia have opened probes into this week’s cyclone.
The probes in the towns of Nuoro and Tempio Pausania will look into whether human factors contributed to the deaths by investigating building, town planning and road infrastructure.
Many homes in areas which reported extensive damage have been built illegally along river banks while entire neighborhoods were reportedly constructed without urban planning projects approved by local governments. In an interview to Turin daily La Stampa published Friday, Riccardo Rossi, a prosecutor in Tempio Pausania charged with one of the probes, said “there are people responsible” for the devastation.
“It is perhaps possible to talk about destiny when someone is swallowed by a hole or submerged by water but thinking that all the rest is an (act of God) is wrong,” said the state attorney.
Italy’s civil protection chief Franco Gabrielli on Wednesday also slammed local authorities for allowing the disastrous cyclone to catch them unprepared. Responding to accusations that the agency failed to give Sardinia adequate notice, Gabrielli stressed the agency put out a weather alert on Sunday “12 hours prior to the rain, warning prefectures and the regional government, who must then inform municipalities. Ask these bodies what they did”.