Tornadoes, wind gusts of up to 110 km per hour, lightning, hail, uncontrolled traffic and destruction of crops. Lombardy has to face serious damage from bad weather. In Milan, with the storm that broke out around 4 o’clock, it seemed like the “apocalypse” with “infernal noises”, unroofed roofs, broken windows, but fortunately no victims were reported in the capital.
In the Brescia area, on the other hand, Chiara Rossetto, a 16-year-old girl scout, dies overwhelmed by a fallen tree while sleeping in a tent with eight other companions on Corteno Golgi. Crushed in the night as happened last night in Brianza to a 58-year-old woman from Lissone who was walking to work. Two deaths due to bad weather that are “tragic news” according to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who wanted to give her “the most sincere hug and the total closeness of the Government to her families.”
Physically, Cardinal Oscar Cantoni, bishop of Como, the city where Chiara was born and raised, wanted to be close to the other scouts and their families. The Brescia public prosecutor has opened an investigation into the manslaughter incident and will hear from the organizers in the coming days to understand why the children stayed in the woods despite the bad weather.
Lombardy, estimating in over 100 million first count damageofficially asked the government for a state of emergency. And also the head of state Sergio Mattarella, in Milan for the opening ceremony of the world fencing championship, stopped to speak with the president attilio fontana and the mayor jose hall to know the situation. “I think the storm that hit Lombardy last night can be considered the most intense in several decades,” said the governor, speaking of phenomena never seen before.
The damage to vineyards and nurseries has been enormous, so much so that the Region, after quantifying it, will also request the state of catastrophe as well as an exception to the law that excludes unforeseen companies from insurance against supplies catastrophes. Numerous delays and interruptions on the railway lines, with a train on the Milan-Chiasso line that was evacuated with 100 people on board in Monza, where the wind uncovered the canopies that ended up on the tracks.
A nightmare night for Milan, in suspense due to a real storm. In 10 minutes almost 40 millimeters of rain, which usually falls in a month: “I have seen 65 summers go by and what I am seeing now is not normal, we can no longer deny it, climate change is changing our lives,” observed Mayor Giuseppe Sala. It is difficult to move around the city due to the large number of trees that have fallen in the streets of the center and on the outskirts, which have also uprooted the power lines of public transport and destroyed cars. Result: traffic blocked and trams and buses slowed down and with modified routes Eleven kindergartens and three nurseries where there were summer camps were closed due to water infiltration and falling trees and the City Council ordered the closure of all fenced parks (such as the Sempione park and the Montanelli gardens), as well as the prohibition of access to unfenced parks and open wooded areas.
And also the Castello Sforzesco, where some tiles fell, was closed to the public for security reasons and “for natural disasters”, as well as the Contemporary Art Pavilion, the Museum of Natural Sciences and the planetarium. The parks closed in Milan but not in Monza, where bad weather did not prevent Bruce Springsteen’s concert at the racecourse inside the park despite opposition from various political figures, including Lombard security councilor Romano La Russa: “I wouldn’t have done it…”. But even before the damage count in Milan, there is a new weather warning for thunderstorms until six in the morning with a call to stay away from scaffolding, dehors and trees.