Italy Among Top Countries Affected by Climate-Related Disasters

French rail operator SNCF said Tuesday that services on the Paris-Milan rail line will be halted for several days at least because of extreme weather.

It said this week's violent thunderstorms the Maurienne Valley will require a major clean-up operation, CE Report quotes ANSA.

Italy has also been badly affected by powerful storms and by the exceptional heatwave that has hit Europe.

On Monday a man in his 50s drowned after a river broke its banks at Bardonecchia near Turin, causing widespread severe flooding, following torrential rain.

A 47-year-old man of Moroccan origin, Ait El Hajjam Brahim, died of a bad turn in the scorching heat around 12, while working on the construction site of the Jussi school in San Lazzaro near Bologna, also on Monday.

Italy has suffered a series of devastating and frequently deadly extreme weather events in recent years and is especially exposed to the climate crisis.

Extreme weather events linked to the climate crisis caused over 765,000 deaths worldwide between 1993 to 2022, including around 38,000 deaths in Italy, Germanwatch said in its 'Climate Risk Index 2025' report in February.

The development, environment and human rights organization said Italy was the fifth-worst-affected country by these climate events in the period in question after Dominica, China, Honduras and Myanmar.

Scientists say the climate crisis caused by human greenhouse gas emissions is making extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts, supercharged storms and flooding more frequent and more intense.

Although there are many sources of the greenhouse gases that are causing global heating, the main driver is the burning of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal, sales of which generate huge profits for the world's energy giants.