Northern floods, southern droughts: Italy’s hottest summer since 1950

Italy has recorded its hottest summer since 1950, as extreme weather takes a growing toll across the country.

Northern Italy was hit by torrential rain, flooding and landslides, while the south grappled with prolonged heat, drought and water shortages.

In the northern town of Sonico, in Lombardy, a summer storm caused a bridge to collapse and be swept away by water and debris on August 20.

Hundreds of people were evacuated and a major state road was closed.

'Worst landslide in memory'

Pietro Gulberti, president of Civil Protection Sonico, told CGTN the landslide was the worst in memory in the Val Rabbia area.

“There was a similar one in 2012, but this unfortunately was much bigger,” he said, adding that around one million cubic metres of debris were transported by the landslide.

Residents described the impact of the storm as frightening.

“There was fear and terror because the whole house was trembling,” resident Paola Madeo told CGTN. Her husband, Mario, said: “Water is needed but not to the point that it creates disaster.”

No one was injured, but Civil Protection teams continue to work to secure the area. Rebuilding the bridge could take years.

Italy’s state road operator ANAS says climate change is creating new risks for infrastructure, highlighting the need for closer monitoring and more frequent checks of vulnerable structures such as bridges ahead of forecast events.

“We’re seeing rainfall that is increasingly concentrated, huge amounts of water that fall in a short period of time with little warning,” Pino Bellusci of ANAS Lombardy told CGTN. He said the conditions were putting pressure on slopes, waterways and road infrastructure.

A tale of two cities

But in southern Italy, the challenge is the opposite.

According to Italy’s National Research Council, this summer was the country’s hottest since 1950, when continuous temperature monitoring began.

August was the hottest month, with average temperatures 5.2 degrees Celsius above the 1951-1980 average.

In Sicily, the town of Floridia recorded a European temperature record of 48.8 degrees Celsius in 2021. Residents say extreme heat is increasingly affecting daily life, with public squares and playgrounds left deserted during the hottest periods.

“It’s hard to breathe,” Floridia resident Ugo Tomasello said. “As I walked, I thought I could die here in the street, with no one around to help me.”

Luigi Pasotti, director of Sicily’s Agrometeorological Information Service, says the heat is also changing social behaviour.

“We’re seeing a regression of socialisation similar to what we experienced during the lockdown of Covid-19,” he said.

Pasotti added that extreme heat was no longer limited to short-lived temperature peaks.

“We are talking about entire weeks, even months during which temperatures remain consistently high,”

From floods and landslides in the north to heat and drought in the south, Italy is facing increasingly intense and contrasting climate threats - and growing pressure to adapt.