ROME- A heavy downpour on Saturday afternoon has wreaked havoc in Florence, with officials declaring the city and its surrounding area in a state of emergency. The heavy rain caused trees to fall, raised the level of the river Arno, and disrupted train lines. It was said that in just two hours, 58 millimetres of rain fell, the equivalent to the average rainfall of one rainy month. 

President of the Tuscany region Enrico Rossi signed to declare a state of emergency on Monday, after consulting with Florence mayor Dario Nardella. One of the possibilities considered by the Tuscany regional government is to employ asylum seekers and refugees living in the region to clean and restore the facilities damaged by the downpour. A damage report is yet to be released.

Among the injured include a 19 year-old male who suffered severe head trauma from a falling branch whilst at his car. The male underwent surgery on Saturday and still remains in a serious condition in the intensive therapy ward in Careggio hospital. Two people were also saved from drowning by the Italian fire department when they were trapped in their vehicles in an underpass that was quickly filling with water.

Transport issues ensued in Rome, following Fiumicino’s airport crisis and the metro strikes as 1,500 passengers travelling to Florence were held in Termini station from Saturday evening because of problems due to the heavy downpour. The Rome Civil Protection was there at Rome’s main train station to distribute water and blankets to travellers. By late Sunday, all train lines to Florence were fully operational again.

According to director of the Tuscany meteorological office Bernando Gozzini, the downpour occurred due to the recent heatwave the whole of Italy has been experiencing. He explained that downpours such as these have become more and more common, their number tripling in the last 15 years. For Gozzini, the most worrying aspect of the downpours is their increased intensity, whose force has increased by approximately 35 percent in the same time period, and he attributes this to global warming.