Storms destroy millions of trees in northern Italy, kill at least 20

[left-of-center2012]

Fierce winds and rains have killed at least 20 people in Italy this week and razed thousands of hectares (one hectare equals 2.471 acres) of forest in the country's devastated north, officials said. Trees covering the mountainsides in the Dolomites range were reduced to matchsticks, flattened by winds that tore through the Veneto region on Thursday.

"It's like after an earthquake," Veneto Governor Luca Zaia said. "Thousands of hectares of forest were razed to the ground, as if by a giant electric saw." In addition, 160,000 people in the region were left without electricity, Zaia said, adding that parts of the Dolomites were "reduced to looking like the surface of the moon."

Coldiretti, the association of Italian agricultural companies, said in a statement that gales had destroyed around 14 million trees, many in the far north. "We'll need at least a century to return to normality," it said.

Italy's civil protection agency described the weather lashing Italy this week as "one of the most complex meteorological situations of the past 50 to 60 years".

https://www.dailysabah.com/europe/2018/11/03/storms-destroy-millions-of-trees-in-northern-italy-kill-at-least-20

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. But climate change is a hoax. Right?

[malaise]

3. Yep n/t

[BigmanPigman]

2. From Sicily up to Venice...that is the whole country.

Their infrastructure is not just old like ours is but even when it was newly bipuilt it sucked since a lot of the contracts for the building supplies were really poor quality and the mafia was the main supplier of the crummy materials.

[dalton99a]

4. Drone footage:

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-46069770/italy-s-stradivari-forest-torn-down-by-winds

[left-of-center2012]

5. Trump told is "climate change is a Chinese hoax"

He also told us he would never lie to us.