Category Archives: Italy

Turkey flood deaths rise as fresh fires erupt on Greek island of Evia

Posted on by

Twenty-seven killed in Turkish flash flooding, with southern Europe bracing for more extreme weather

The death toll from flash floods in Turkey has reached 27 and fresh wildfires erupted on the ravaged Greek island of Evia, as southern Europe braces for more extreme weather events caused by human-made climate change.

Record Mediterranean heatwaves fuelled blazes that have devastated parts of Italy, Turkey and Algeria, with Spain and Portugal on high alert, while Turkey’s Black Sea region has been hit by some of the worst floods in living memory.

Continue reading...

Sardinia’s seasonal crimewave of sand thieves

Posted on by

Tourists can’t resist a keepsake, despite a public information campaign and fines of up to €3,000

What irritated the local mayor most was the audacity of the tourists who tried to conceal their crime on the white-sanded Sinis beach along the west coast of Sardinia.

On a morning in late July, the visitors – a couple with a child, from mainland Italy – were spotted by a fellow beachgoer filling a plastic bottle with sand. The witness to the act immediately called the police.

Continue reading...

‘All that’s left are ashes’: Italian communities count cost of wildfires

Posted on by

Blazes raging in southern regions have ravaged mountain area of Calabria that is home to Unesco world heritage site

As with most farmers living in the remote towns of the Aspromonte mountain range in Calabria, southern Italy, Nicola Fortugno’s land was his life. The 79-year-old refused to be evacuated when flames engulfed Piraino, a hamlet surrounded by pine forest above the town of Cardeto, on Wednesday. Instead, he stayed at home to try to save his animals and crops. His burnt, lifeless body was found by firefighters.

“I used to see Nicola whenever he came to town to go to the chemist or see the doctor,” said Francesca Crea, owner of the newspaper shop in Cardeto. “His death is very painful as we’re a community of mostly farmers, people who make great sacrifices for a small patch of land – the animals are their treasures.”

Continue reading...

Firefighters battle flames for 12 hours in worst night of southern Italy wildfires – video

Posted on by

Firefighters battled 300 different blazes across the southern regions of Italy, Calabria and Sicily in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Seven Canadair planes flew over the area, which has had 70% more wildfires than in the previous year, the majority breaking out in Sicily, Puglia, Calabria and Sardinia

Continue reading...

Video captures moment arsonist sets fire to grass in southern Italy – video

Posted on by

A video has been released by the Italian carabinieri military police showing a hidden camera capturing an arsonist starting a fire in the countryside.

The video released on 6 August showed a person light a match and place it on the grass before running away near Montesarchio, a town 31 miles (49km) from Naples in Italy. The man was arrested.

In Italy, the civil protection authority warned on Monday of more fires to come as temperatures in parts of the country reach 45C.

Continue reading...

Wildfires rage in Greece and Italy as EU mounts firefighting operation

Posted on by

Week of blazes forces evacuations and brings devastating scale of destruction to large areas of southern Europe

The devastating scale of destruction from a week of wildfires in Greece and Italy was being assessed as the EU mounted one of its largest firefighting operations ever and smoke from forest fires in Siberia reached the north pole.

As UN experts on Monday said global warming was advancing faster than feared and that humanity was “unequivocally” to blame, firefighters and local residents battled massive blazes on the island of Evia, east of Athens, for a seventh straight day.

Continue reading...

Thousands flee Greek island as wildfires raze forest and homes

Posted on by

Firefighters tackle blazes on two fronts on Evia as heatwave-driven devastation across southern Europe continues

Thousands of people have fled wildfires that are destroying vast swathes of pine forest and razing homes on Greece’s second-largest island, Evia, as devastating summer blazes rage from southern Europe to Siberia.

“We have ahead of us another difficult evening, another difficult night,” Greece’s deputy civil protection minister, Nikos Hardalias, said on Sunday, adding that nearly a week after the blazes started, strong winds were driving two major fire fronts in the north and south of the island.

Continue reading...

‘If you talk, you live well’: the remote Sardinian village with eight centenarians

Posted on by

Books, clean air and socialising thought to have helped the latest five mark their 100th birthdays in Perdasdefogu this year

If there’s one thing the remote mountain village of Perdasdefogu needs to ensure it always has a steady supply of, it’s birthday candles. Already this year, 500 have been needed to decorate the birthday cakes of five residents who turned 100.

Each milestone usually means a celebration involving the entire town. The mayor, Mariano Carta, presents a medal to the centenarian, who more often than not can recall details of their life over the past century with remarkable lucidity.

Continue reading...

Reputed mafia ‘godmother’ arrested at Rome airport

Posted on by

Prosecutors allege Maria Licciardi, 70, ran extortion rackets as head of Naples-based Camorra crime syndicate

A reputed top Naples crime syndicate boss was arrested as she was about to board a flight to Spain, Italian authorities said.

The interior minister, Luciana Lamorgese, praised the arrest of Maria Licciardi, 70, by Carabinieri officers on the orders of Naples prosecutors.

Continue reading...

‘It is a bit annoying’: Italy’s Covid pass restrictions kick in

Posted on by

Green pass rule has prompted some protests but not on same scale as similar scheme in France

The ritual of coffee and breakfast at the bar in Italy has become slightly more complicated as restrictions on unvaccinated citizens kicked in.

People can still drink coffee and eat a cornetto, a type of croissant, while standing at the bar or sitting at an outside table without needing to present a so-called green pass. But not if they are seated inside.

Continue reading...

Eight dead as wildfires continue to rage across southern Europe

Posted on by

Deaths occur in Turkey with Italy and Greece also badly hit and thousands evacuated

Eight people have died and thousands have been evacuated from their homes as extreme wildfires continue to rage in parts of southern Europe.

Related: The photo that has come to define Turkey’s wildfires

Continue reading...

‘Now it’s continuous noise’: Italy’s Crusoe adjusts to life off his island

Posted on by

It is more than three months since Mauro Morandi left Budelli after living alone there for 32 years

Every morning, Mauro Morandi woke up to the uninterrupted sea view that only he was privy to. Immersed in nature, he was intimately in tune with the dawn sounds and habits of the wildlife that surrounded his home, a former second world war shelter on Budelli, the Mediterranean island where he had lived alone for more than 30 years.

Now the 82-year-old is adjusting to life in a one-bedroom apartment next to a shop with a Sky TV sign outside, surrounded by neighbours and with only a glimpse of the ocean in between the gaps separating the buildings opposite on nearby La Maddalena, the largest of an archipelago of seven islands off the north coast of Sardinia, Italy.

Continue reading...

Italy celebrates ‘most beautiful day’ after double Olympic gold

Posted on by

Tokyo Games wins in 100m and high jump in space of 11 minutes prompt outpouring of national pride

Stunned and ecstatic after claiming two gold medals in the space of 11 minutes, as Lamont Marcell Jacobs won the 100m final and Gianmarco Tamberi shared first place in the high jump, Italians have been celebrating a golden Sunday at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

“It is Italian sport’s most beautiful day,” said Giovanni Malagò, the president of the Italian Olympics Committee. “They have made history. Our grandchildren’s grandchildren will talk about it. This is better than the Eurocup,” he added, referring to Italy’s Euro 2020 football victory last month.

Continue reading...

Turkey appeals for help to fight wildfires as heatwave continues

Posted on by

Wildfires break out across much of southern Europe, with temperature reaching 45C in Greece

Turkey has launched an international appeal for help in taming fires raging across the country that have killed eight people in recent days, as what has been described as one of the worst heatwaves in decades intensifies in south-east Europe.

Following criticism of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, after it emerged that Turkey has no firefighting planes, authorities in Istanbul were promised water-dropping planes from the European Union. The country is battling deadly wildfires along its coastline for a sixth day.

Continue reading...

Aerial footage of Pescara wildfire as residents and tourists evacuated – video

Posted on by

At least five people were wounded and holidaymakers evacuated after wildfires devastated a pine wood near a beach in Pescara, Italy, as one of the worst heatwaves in decades swept across south-east Europe.

About 800 people were evacuated from their homes, including a convent of nuns, after a fire broke out in the 53-hectare (131-acre) Pineta Dannunziana nature reserve, as the fires continue to be active on different fronts

Continue reading...

Tourists evacuated from Pescara as Italy records more than 800 wildfires

Posted on by

Wildfires burn across Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey in heatwave bringing temperatures above 40C

At least five people have been wounded and holidaymakers evacuated after wildfires devastated a pine wood near a beach in Pescara, Italy, as one of the worst heatwaves in decades swept across south-east Europe.

A five-year-old girl was taken to hospital but her condition is not believed to be life-threatening, according to reports.

Continue reading...

The Guardian view on Fortress Europe: a continent losing its moral compass

Posted on by

The increasingly draconian approach to irregular migration betrays the spirit of the 1951 refugee convention

Seventy years ago, the 1951 UN refugee convention established the rights of refugees to seek sanctuary, and the obligations of states to protect them. Increasingly, it seems that much of Europe is choosing to commemorate the anniversary by ripping up some of the convention’s core principles.

So far this year, close to 1,000 migrants have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean, more than four times the death toll for the same period in 2020. Many will have been economic migrants. Others will have been fleeing persecution. Increasingly, Europe does not care. All were “irregular”. And all must be discouraged and deterred through a strategy of cruelty.

Continue reading...

Submarine robot captures underwater footage of ancient Roman ship laden with wine jars – video

Posted on by

An ancient Roman ship carrying a cargo load of wine jars, or amphorae, has been found underwater in the Mediterranean Sea off the Italian island of Sicily. The vessel was discovered during an underwater reconnaissance expedition by the island's Regional Agency for Environment Protection. The findings will shed light on Rome’s trade activity in the Mediterranean, where the Romans traded spices, wine, olives and other products in north Africa, Spain, France and the Middle East

Continue reading...

Lucia Mantione: murdered Sicilian girl finally given funeral after 66 years

Posted on by

Catholic church had denied 13-year-old girl sexually assaulted and killed in 1955 a funeral due to arcane rule

There had never been so many people at a funeral in the history of Montedoro, a village suspended in time among wheat fields and abandoned sulphur mines in central Sicily.

Its 1,500 inhabitants had waited for this moment for more than half a century, and on Wednesday gathered in hundreds in solemn prayer in the village church around a small white coffin.

Continue reading...