"The fires and weather disasters of the last few days have put and are putting a strain on Italy. I sincerely sympathize with the pain of those who have lost loved ones and the most affected communities. The government has made available, in support of the work of the regions, all the means at its disposal. But above all, I must thank the volunteers, the firefighters, the members of the armed forces. All the teams are mobilized, just as police and judiciary are working to find out the perpetrators of the arson fires. Clearly, we can only hope that the reduction of the temperature in Sicily and the easing of adverse conditions in the north will make the work of these operators less difficult in the coming hours, but we must not and cannot limit ourselves to these emergency interventions, because using all available means does not mean, I say it clearly, that we have all the necessary means today". With these words yesterday Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni addressed Italians in a video message about the dramatic consequences of fires and cloudbursts that have hit the country. "In recent months," Meloni continued, "the government has already increased hiring among those called to rescue as far back as the next budget law we intend to increase spending on the maintenance of air vehicles. However, the continuous disasters we have witnessed in recent months from Ischia, through Emilia Romagna to what we are seeing these days, show that emergencies will always be present, and this means that we certainly need to work on transition, but it also means that we need to do what we have not had the courage to do sufficiently in the past, that is, work to secure the territory. So the government's medium-term goal is to overcome the logic of fragmented interventions by launching a major hydrogeological prevention plan. In short, we want to try hard to give immediate answers in the short term, but effective in the medium term".
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