Emilia Romagna is in pain these days. We spoke with Maurizio Castellari, a Imola geologist, in order to clarify certain aspects of the ongoing tragedy: "The territory is in a dire situation, particularly in the low plains and hilly regions. Along the Via Emilia that connects Bologna and Rimini, Castel Bolognese, Faenza, Forl, and Cesena are experiencing severe flooding, with water reaching the first floor of homes, while in the plains, flood waves have caused embankment overflows and breaches even within the past few hours. These scenes remind me of the Polesine flood of 1951." The effects of the continued presence of this water in such a vast flow between plains and hills are diverse and potentially catastrophic: on the one hand, there is a risk of severe crop damage (especially to the fruit trees native to the region), while on the other hand, the effect is already massive. Unquestionably, one of the most frightening aspects of what occurred in Emilia-Romagna was the rainfall, which ranged from 250 millimeters in 36 hours in hilly areas to 300 millimeters in less than two days in the Ravenna area. Numbers on which the president of the order of geologists, Paride Antolini, comments: "When there is normal rainfall, I often get angry about the management of the territory because there are always some gaps." Recent rainfall has been extremely heavy, and the river network's banks are not designed to withstand such precipitation.
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