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".
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