Tornado, hail storms hit northern Italy as the south swelters
By Maighna Nanu
A large tornado tore through Milan on Friday, damaging buildings and sending debris flying as Italy continued to suffer from extreme weather.
Footage shared on social media showed the tornado touching down in a densely populated part of the northern Italian city.
An apparent tornado is seen in Gessate, Lombardy.Credit: Reuters
Italian weather site MeteoWeb reported that several people may have been injured.
Local media in nearby Bergamo reported wind speeds as high as 200km/h, with several people reportedly suffering serious injuries as a result of falling debris.
In Bubbiano, a suburb in south-west Milan, a van was swept into a canal by the high winds, with the driver reportedly managing to escape from the vehicle.
Emergency services attended more than 100 incidents in the area, according to MeteoWeb, and the European Storm Forecast Experiment issued a severe weather warning for the whole of northern Italy.
The tornado came after tennis-ball sized hail hammered Venice earlier this week, injuring more than 100 people, even as the south of the country continued to swelter amid a heatwave. Extreme weather was reported across the Veneto region, with hailstones measuring up to 10cm in diameter pelting the streets and damaging buildings.
The extreme weather hit the Veneto region, which includes Venice and Verona, with hailstones measuring up to 10cm in diameter pelting the streets and damaging property.
Footage on social media showed flooded streets in the city of Padova, with cars unable to move, and enormous hail showering down amid a raucous storm.
Luca Zaia, the region’s president, said: “The wave of bad weather, after having impacted our mountain regions, has now also hit the plains, causing injury to some people.”
Italian news channel Sky TG24 reported a 53-year-old man had died riding his bike amid the storm, which began on Wednesday, when his wife, who was trailing behind with the couple’s car, ran over him.
The developments came as much of Italy’s south baked earlier this week, with temperatures as high as 44 degrees recorded in Sicily.
A new record-high temperature of 41.8 degrees was reportedly recorded in the capital, Rome, on Tuesday.
Public health warnings to protect children, older adults and people with health problems remain in effect in many areas.
Tourists walk under a scorching sun at the Roman Forum in Rome.Credit: AP
Dramatic weather conditions continue to impact vast swathes of Europe, with Greece struggling to contain a wildfire west of Athens that burnt forestland for a fifth day on Friday as another heatwave hit the country.
Firefighters, backed by air water bombers and reinforcements from Cyprus, France, Israel and Italy, attempted to control the blaze, which torched houses and forced locals to evacuate.
“We continue to battle the blaze west of Athens. We are worried about a major rekindling,” a fire service official said.
More than 100 properties were severely damaged by the wildfire and another blaze near the Greek capital that was put out earlier this week.
Vassilis Kikilias, the climate crisis minister, urged people to remain on guard. The risk of wildfires in the coming days will remain high and further heat is forecast following on from a previous heatwave.
“We are having a very difficult three-day spell, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with extreme weather conditions and very high temperatures followed by strong winds,” the minister said, adding that after a short respite, another heatwave was forecast from the middle of next week.
With temperatures expected to hit 45 degrees on Saturday and Sunday, the culture ministry said all archaeological sites, including the Acropolis monument, would shut between noon and 5.30pm local time.
The sweltering conditions are expected to persist across the Mediterranean, as well as in North America, Asia and North Africa, into next month, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warned on Friday.
“We should expect or at least plan for these extreme heatwaves to continue through August,” John Nairn, a senior extreme heat adviser for the WMO, told Reuters.
The Telegraph, London
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