Footage of the storm’s aftermath showed streets filled with debris and stretches of beachfront wrecked by storm surges.
“It’s unreal,” a resident of the town of Mascali on Sicily’s eastern coast told Il Corriere della Sera newspaper. “The entire area is experiencing significant hardship.”
“Even if it was announced in advance, we weren’t expecting anything like this.”
The civil protection department activated an early-warning system on Saturday. This and the quick response by local authorities was credited with preventing any deaths.
But the cost of the damage could reach half a billion euros, according to initial estimates on Wednesday.
Catania in eastern Sicily was among the cities that bore the brunt of the destruction.
“Our restaurant has been here for almost thirty years and now there’s nothing left,” Luca Faro, the owner of Andrew’s Faro restaurant on the Catania seafront, told Il Corriere.
“Only the sign remains, the sea took everything else.
“Seeing what you've built in thirty years disappear in a couple of hours, or rather a couple of minutes, is a terrible thing that I wouldn't wish on anyone.”
The damage in Sicily’s capital of Palermo was less severe, though several boats docked at the Villa Igea Marina were sunk and a car swept into the sea.
A hundred metres of seafront collapsed into the ocean at Melito Porto Salvo on the southern tip of Calabria, La Repubblica newspaper reported, and the city of Catanzaro was hit by severe flooding.
Some parts of the region saw as much rainfall over the course of four days as would typically fall in six months.
The damage to Sardinia was “immense”, the island region’s governor Alessandra Todde said, with Cagliari, Dorgali, Cala Gonone, and Torpè among the worst affected areas.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday expressed her “deepest sympathy” for those affected and offered the government’s support.
Sardinian Councillor Giuseppe Meloni (no relation of the prime minister) called on the government to “quickly declare a state of emergency” to provide immediate relief to those impacted by the storm.
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