2023 Emilia-Romagna floods

The 2023 Emilia-Romagna floods were a series of floods in and around the cities of Bologna, Cesena, Forlì, Ravenna, and Rimini, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. The first floods happened between 2 and 3 May 2023, killing two people. Heavy secondary floods happened on 16–17 May 2023, killing at least 14 people and displacing 20,000 others. The usual amount of rain that falls in seven months fell in two weeks which made twenty-three rivers to overflow causing the floods.

 Effects 
On 17 May, Stefano Bonaccini, the president of Emilia-Romagna said that "in the last 24 hours, more than 300 millimeters of rain have fallen" and described the floods as a "catastrophic event, never seen before".Later on, Bonaccini  compared it the impact to the 2012 Emilia earthquakes, saying that the damage was likely to be less significant but would still cost the region billions of euros to repair. Lucia Mercalli, president of the Italian Meteorological Society, said that "two records were broken in 15 days in the same region. An event that occurred on 2 May might happen once in a century, but then other one hit the same areas only 15 days later."

 Relief Efforts 
Emergency operations were carried out in response to the flood, including members of the Italian Red Cross, various armed and police forces, Protezione Civile and the Carabinieri. The state-owned energy company Enel made a task-force that would cooperate with local companies and forces to restore electricity to the affected areas.

 References 

Category:2023 disasters in Europe
Category:2023 floods
Category:2020s disasters in Italy
2023 floods
Category:May 2023 events