Italy's Po River Appears Under Control
As the flood crest of the Po River entered a fertile strip of land in Italy's northeast Friday, authorities and residents in riverside villages reinforced the banks, lined up sandbags and raised a bridge.
The worst appeared to be over, but authorities said they would remain on alert until the floodwaters begin draining into the sea, likely this weekend.
To the north, search teams working in the debris in the hardest hit Piedmont and Val D'Aosta regions pulled out another body, raising the death toll for Italy and Switzerland to 36. The body was found in Piedmont, the Italian Civil Defense said.
Nine people were still missing.
"Now the main question is how the banks hold, but the pressure has decreased," Italy's Interior Minister Enzo Bianco said Friday, a day after he visited the flooded areas. "Until the flood crest arrives into the Adriatic, we must not drop the guard."
In Castelmassa, where the Po enters the Veneto region before emptying into the Adriatic, the river was about seven feet below its banks. The level of the waters was unchanged over the past 12 hours.
On the other bank of the river, railway workers spent the night cutting tracks on a bridge in Pontelagoscuro, near the Renaissance city of Ferrara, so they could lift the bridge by three feet and keep it from halting the flow of the river.
Closing the bridge caused major tie-ups in nearby highways, the ANSA news agency reported, while railway traffic was disrupted in both Italy and Switzerland.
Rail traffic through the Simplon tunnel between Italy and Switzerland remained closed because of the danger of landslides. Train connections with the Zermatt ski resort in Switzerland were still not working, but on Friday bus lines were restored.
Between the two countries, about 23,000 people were still unable to return to their flooded homes. Bianco said that about 4,000 Italians lost their homes. Authorities estimate the damage in the hundreds of million of dollars.
In Turin, the Fiat auto giant Thursday reopened two of its biggest plants, which had been closed for three days. Fiat's spokesman Andrea Griva said that about 7,500 cars would have been assembled in that time.
Italian Premier Giuliano Amato said Wednesday that an additional $22 million has been allocated for aid, in addition to $44 million already promised by the government.
Rail traffic through the Simplon tunnel between Italy and Switzerland, which had resumed, was suspended indefinitely Thursday because of a renewed danger of landslides.
The floods and landslides started Saturday in southern Switzerland and northern Italy after days of pounding rain across the region.
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