N Just a few days ago, Letojanni, a small town on the east coast of Sicily not far from Taormina, was able to upgrade with a picturesque beach promenade: above, the street on which thousands of tourists stroll in summer; a few meters further down the long sandy beach with its lidos, restaurants, kiosks.
But then, from January 20th, the cyclone Harry. It hit like a huge wrecking ball, with never-ending rain for days, but above all with winds of over 130 km/h, with incessantly crashing crests of waves up to eight meters high. And Harry did a great job. In the end, the beach was gone, as was the road, whose pieces of asphalt were bizarrely folded as if they were made of papier-mâché, and the restaurants, which had been completely dismantled, also looked like they were made of cardboard.
However, such images were not only to be seen from Letojanni. The cyclone left a 100-kilometer-long path of destruction along the east coast of Sicily from Messina to Catania to Syracuse, and also hit the Ionian Sea coast in Calabria as well as Sardinia.
The railway lines running along the sea in both Calabria and Sicily are interrupted; in various places the tracks are suspended in the air because the sea has torn away the supporting dam beneath them. Streets were also torn away, as were the houses that were in the first row facing the sea.
“Never” experienced anything like it
The regional governments are now preparing an initial assessment of the damage, around one billion euros in Sicily, 500 million in Calabria, and 500 million in Sardinia. But Italy seems strangely distracted in the face of the disaster. In the media it was a secondary issue, covered somewhere in the back pages of major newspapers like the Corriere della Sera or The Republic.
The experts say that southern Italy has just experienced the worst winter storm since the beginning of this century, and old people in particular keep saying the sentence to the TV camera that they have “never” experienced anything comparable.
And the connection to the climate crisis is completely obvious. Meteorologist Mattia Gussoni explains that the winter storms themselves are not the problem – they have always existed. What is new, however, is their violence – and this is simply due to the significant warming of the Mediterranean, which has given Harry a previously unimagined energy.
A broad discussion is now due: What does Italy have to do to cope with the new threat situation? Which beach promenades can still be maintained in their current form? What needs to happen to the railway lines and the roads that run directly along the coast? But almost no one in Italy is having this discussion.
Ironically, Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci said it during a visit to the Sicilian disaster area: “In a few days we will have forgotten that. And unfortunately this is a cultural barrier that we Italians generally have.” However, his government is not thinking about the necessary ones Infrastructure adjustments to talk.
Not even a national issue
But not only is the discussion lacking, the information also leaves a lot to be desired. Harry simply couldn’t manage to become a national topic and earn at least a small place next to Greenland or Davos. The web portal Ionian Journal from Messina also complains with bitter words about “the forgotten Sicily”.
The cyclone marks a radical change: Italy is on the way from a Mediterranean to a subtropical climate, which in addition to over-hot, over-long summers also heavier rainsdestructive storms include.
This is not really surprising in a country whose right-wing government under the post-fascist Giorgia Meloni’s main idea when it comes to ecological issues is that it is important to take a front “against the Green madness from Brussels”.
In any case, the media cannot claim a lack of space. After Death of the fashion designer Valentino There have been pages and pages in the daily newspapers in the last week and prominently placed reports in the TV news on all channels. And the left-wing intellectual Christian Raimo etched on his Facebook page: “If you really want to know what is happening in the world: Donatella Versace was dressed in red at Valentino’s funeral.”