At 16.30 yesterday there were already 170 requests for intervention from the operational command of the Fire Brigade of Catania for assistance requests a people in need in cars and in their homes, as well as for damage related to water infiltration, flooding And disrupted. Bad weather then reaped one victim, in Gravina di Catania: a man fail to abandon his car after being hit by the “flood” rainwater. He would then have slipped and ended up under the same car. A third person who was with him tried to save him, but he did not succeed, risking the same fate. Monday was found, a Forget it, the lifeless body of one of the two missing spouses in similar circumstances. The search for his wife also went on yesterday morning, but with negative results. In the city, therefore, flooding is not counted. Dozens of videos of underwater parking lots, sideways cars, flooded basements and streets that look like rivers of mud in flood.

And the emergency – on Etna, in less than 72 hours, the extraordinary threshold of the 600mm of rain – it seems it is not, on the contrary it seems destined to get worse in the next few hours. According to forecasts, the rains will persist throughout the day. A short pause will follow, but waiting for one new upsurge bad weather. Between Thursday and Friday, in fact, the same baric depression, directly responsible for the alluvial rains of the last hours, could undergo a real transition into a tropical cyclone, fed by the warm sea surfaces of the Mediterranean. It is therefore likely that a Mediterranean hurricane – with its load of copious rains, thunderstorms, winds over 130 per hour – in the vicinity of Malta which will then point towards Sicily.

Also today schools will remain closed in Catania, also to grant the interventions of services and a detailed assessment of the huge damages. Also arranged for the closure of all commercial establishments, with the exception of pharmacies, those businesses that sell food and basic necessities that can remain open.