Situation in Milan normal hopefully by end of August - mayor

(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 27 - Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said Thursday he hoped the situation in the city would be back to normal by the end of August after recent storms and gales ripped up trees and caused flooding and very extensive damage to property and infrastructure.
    "Rather than counting the damage, right now we are working on (drawing up a plan to return the city to normal by the end of August)", said Sala, speaking on the sidelines of commemorations for the Cosa Nostra mafia bombing in Via Palestro on July 27, 1993.
    "Right now I prefer to have all the forces in the field, fire brigade, police, army, Atm, Amsa, working," continued the mayor.
    "On Tuesday I will bring them all together (for a meeting) because I want to have a plan on the table that will lead us to a situation that I hope will be normalised by the end of August," said Sala.
    "I ask the citizens to understand that the situation cannot be restored overnight," he added.
    Sala added that the city would request a state of emergency along with the Lombardy region, which was equally badly affected by the extreme bad weather and has said it suffered damage worth 41 million euros.
    The government is expected to allocate funds next week.
    However Premier Giorgia Meloni said in a video before the cabinet meeting on Wednesday that "the medium-term objective that the government has set itself is to overcome the logic of fragmented interventions by launching a major hydrogeological prevention plan". (ANSA).