‘We feel abandoned’: Survivors of Italy’s devastating floods
Al Jazeera
Huge floods in northern Italy displaced tens of thousands of people in May. Few have got their lives back since.
Faenza, Italy — The moment Giorgio Patuelli realised that all his possessions had been destroyed in an instant, was surreal.
“That night, when I believed I was going to drown in the stinking black waters, with the noise of streams all around me, my only thought was to save myself and my loved ones,” he says.
“When the adrenaline passed, I realised: I don’t own anything any more.”
These days, having been displaced by the catastrophic May 2023 flooding in the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy, Giorgio Patuelli, in his early 60s, lives with his disabled sister and elderly mother in a small, one-room apartment in the city of Faenza.
His old house, which is in another area of the city, stands empty now.
