Snow and frost continue to give no respite to the whole peninsula. Now the concern is the gas emergency: activation of fuel-oil plants, cuts in company supplies. Meanwhile, the death toll since Friday has risen to 25: 7 on Monday alone. In Rome, there is still a dispute between Mayor Alemanno and the Viminale over the emergency in the capital, where schools are also closed on Tuesday, for the third day in a row. The weather forecasts are not reassuring: the cold peak, according to the experts, will be reached between Friday and Saturday, with more snow in the central-south. Heavy in the meantime economic repercussions of the snow wave: enormous damage to companies, agriculture and consumers.
GAS EMERGENCY – The Russian company Gazprom - which in recent days has reduced supplies to Europe and Italy by up to 30% - has ensured every effort to return the situation to normal. For Gazprom "the worst should be behind us". “I'm worried – said the president of Confindustria Emma Marcegaglia instead -. The situation risks becoming critical. Businesses have already suffered from truck strikes and in some areas of the country the impossibility of shipping goods due to bad weather”. "The situation is certainly critical, because flows from Russia and France have decreased, but the situation is well monitored," he said the Minister of Economic Development Corrado Passera. The European Union says it is ready to do its part. "The European Commission is in contact with the Italian authorities and is ready to evaluate aid measures, if they become necessary" explained a spokeswoman from Brussels, referring to the gas emergency. Besides Italy, Romania and Germany also have decreased flows from Russia. However, the plan provides for a containment of supplies to companies, while families will be guaranteed: for the emergency, the Crisis Committee meeting at the Ministry of Development has also given the green light for the activation of fuel-oil power plants.
ROME - Other details emerge on the bad management of the snow by Mayor Gianni Alemanno. An ordinance of December 2011 reads as follows: "Ama will participate in support, compatibly with its institutional duties (...) for the snow plowing works it will make available six vehicles, three mechanical shovels, one blade, two salt spreaders". Six vehicles in all, evidently insufficient to spread the salt. What about the other snow blowers? All abandoned in via Baccelli, in San Saba, in an elderly center where the Ama depot is located. Full of shovels, the ones to be attached to the compactors to transform the vehicles into snow plows: and they are owned by the Ama, bought several times in years in which the Campidoglio's anti-snow plan staked everything on the municipal company. Not anymore with Alemanno: the vehicles are abandoned without maintenance, and for shoveling we rely, as per ordinance, on the garden service and voluntary associations. Once again the Mayor is denied by the facts, as well as by the telephone calls recorded with the head of the Civil Protection Franco Gabrielli, and by the harsh words of the Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri. In fact, it remains objectively paradoxical that a city like Rome, even if unaccustomed to snow, is still semi-paralyzed five days after the snowfall, and schools are still closed on Tuesday, for the third day in a row (public offices have finally reopened instead).
SNOW AND INCONVENIENCE – Polar temperatures throughout the peninsula: from -9° in Milan to -7° in Trieste, passing through the -5° of Bologna. The record, among the capitals, is announced in Aosta, with -12°. And the temperatures in L'Aquila (-5°) and Perugia (-6°) remain decidedly below zero. Meanwhile the snowfalls return to the Central South, e in various regions there are still inconveniences above all in terms of road conditions: it is snowing heavily on the A14 Bologna-Taranto between Bari sud and Mottola and on the A16 Napoli-Canosa between Lacedonia and the junction for the A14, for this reason the section between Candela and the junction for the A14 is closed in both directions . Light snowfalls are underway on the A1 between Parma and Rioveggio, on the A13 Bologna-Padova between Bologna and Rovigo; on the A14 between Faenza and Pesaro, between San Benedetto del Tronto and Foggia and between Canosa and south Bari and on the A23 Udine-Tarvisio between Pontebba and the state border. Same situation on the A24 Rome-Teramo between Tagliacozzo and Teramo. A prefectural ordinance prohibits the transit of trucks weighing more than 7,5 tons, only on ordinary roads in the province of Avellino.
EUROPE – The frost wave continues to advance westward: iThe intense cold is now also affecting France, where five people have died in the last 48 hours, 75 provinces have declared night alerts and Minister Baroin has admitted the gas emergency, even though he specified that "the situation is under control". Meanwhile even Paris is under the snow, with temperatures well below zero degrees. The victims across the continent continue to rise: there are more than 250, of which about 140 in Ukraine alone, the most affected country.
FORECASTS - The peak of the cold, experts say, will be reached between Friday and Saturday, when the temperatures will be even more rigid and there will be new snowfalls also in the central-south, even in the plains, with rainfall that promises to be massive especially in Rome and Lazio, but also in the Campagna, Puglia, Emilia Romagna and Marche.
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