The fires that broke out on Tuesday in the morning in Sicily continued last night, spreading throughout this island in the south of Italy. Yesterday afternoon, emergency teams located two charred corpses on the outskirts of the city of Palermo, surrounded by flames that forced the airport to be closed during the morning.
After a week with temperatures reaching 46 degrees due to the heat wave caused by the anticyclone Charont, the fire spread throughout the island, and approached tourist towns such as Catania and Taormina, while the authorities asked the population to avoid going outdoors due to the risk of poisoning.
In Cinisi, a town located a few kilometers from Palermo airport, the corpses of two people, aged 77 and 75, who lived in a small house in precarious conditions, were found. The emergency services also confirmed the death of an 88-year-old woman who suffered from health problems and whom the rescue teams could not attend due to the ferocity of the flames.
In addition, two rangers were admitted to the Civic Hospital of Palermo with first to third degree burns, although medical assistance is also complicated, since the proximity of the flames forced the evacuation of the another hospital in the city.
According to the local press, more than 1,500 people have been displaced from towns such as Alimenusa, Gangi, Blufi, Misilmeri, Cefalù Bolognetta, Santa Flavia, Villabate, Partinico, San Cipirello and Corleone, where some homes were completely charred.
Likewise, several sections of the motorways that connect Palermo with other points in Sicily, such as Mazara del Vallo, were closed. On the other hand, on the opposite side of the island, to the east, the eviction of numerous towns built around Taormina, the center of Italian tourism, began in the middle of the summer season.
Also in the vicinity of Catania, the second most populous city in Sicily, the flames reached populated areas and destroyed palm trees in built-up streets, gardens and homes, where there is also no water or electricity due to the intense heat, which cause overloads in electrical services.
“The situation in all of Sicily is very difficult due to the weather conditions, which make the work of those who have to fight the flames even more difficult,” said the president of the Sicily region, Renato Schifani, who has asked for help to arrive firefighters from other regions, since “those who are in service in Sicily are already all destined for the various fronts”. However, the fire also broke out in other southern regions, such as Puglia, with fires in the provinces of Foggia and Lecce, and Calabria, which also required immediate attention.
At the same time, northern Italy suffered a violent storm on Monday night, accompanied by lightning and sudden gusts of wind that caused significant damage, especially in Milan, where numerous streets were flooded and dozens of trees fell. The bad weather made two victims: in the province of Monza, a 58-year-old woman, due to the fall of a tree on the car in which she was going to work, and a 16-year-old girl scout teenager, due to the fall from another tree above his tent, in the province of Brescia.
In an interview, the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, assured that it was known that “it would be a very complicated day”. For his part, the Minister of Civil Protection, Nello Musumeci, declared that it was “one of the most complicated days of recent decades” in Italy, “due to the storms, tornadoes and hailstorms in the north and the scorching heat and devastating fires in the center-south”.