Flooding in Venice. Element does not spare the city

When there is a flood in Venice, the inhabitants of this wonderful Italian city face many problems. It is known that the settlement is located on the islands, which in this area are about one hundred and twenty (the Venetian lagoon). Between them flows about a hundred and fifty channels, through which four hundred bridges are thrown.

The troubled life of the townspeople because of the neighborhood with large water bodies has always been. In ancient times, the settlement (and the city exists somewhere from the 4th-3rd century BC) has been flooded many times, so the ancient settlers, after they were covered by another flood in Venice, had to move all the buildings up to the hills. They learned how to build houses on piles so well that some state officials at the beginning of this millennium compared them to birds living on the water. The island's position of the city allowed it to achieve prosperity through international and local trade, fishing and salt mining.

I must say that a major flood in Venice can very quickly destroy this settlement, because The buildings here are very light. The bottom of the lagoon is sated with silt and very unstable, so the foundations here have always been layered. Below they consist of piles made of Russian larch (almost indestructible), in the middle of a wooden foundation, on which, in turn, lie the stone slabs. The walls of the houses are made of limestone, and the partitions are thin and wooden, so any significant flow of water will blow them away in minutes.

Anyone who wants to see a fairytale city should hurry. After all, it goes under water at a speed of about five millimeters per year. Affected by an increasing number of buildings, as well as taking water from wells. The latter causes subsidence of the ground. To catastrophic flooding in Venice did not happen or happened as late as possible (called the date of the final dive - 2028), a protective MOSE project was erected near the city, allowing to protect the lagoon from the high tides of the Adriatic Sea.

What are the factors that trigger the flood? In Venice 2013, as well as in 2012, the causes of natural disasters were torrential rains and the southern wind, which caused the water to rise above the critical level by one and a half meters. This led, for example, that brave tourists were photographed at café tables in the main square of the city by the chest in the water, and the rest moved around the city in fishing pants with suitcases on their shoulders.

Nature inflicted significant damage to such a city as Venice. The flood, the latest news of 2013, which refers to the winter, not only led to an increased level of water, but also caused some damage to property due to the formation of an ice crust on the surface that scratched the boats and walls of buildings. During this period schools and a number of state institutions were closed, tourist flows decreased. Many owners of shops adjacent to the channels suffered losses due to damage to the goods and a decrease in the number of visitors. After all, the city lives mainly at the expense of guests, the number of which reaches fifteen million a year.