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Drought reaches dangerous levels in Italy: World War II bomb found

The drought, which affects the whole world, but especially affects Europe badly, causes not only disasters but also interesting images.

A bomb from the Second World War has been discovered in the Po River in Italy , which was withdrawn due to extreme Drought .

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The 450 kilogram unexploded bomb was found by a fisherman.

The most severe drought in Italy in the last 70 years has dried up most of the 650km-long river.

The north of Italy is suffering from water shortages due to unusually warm weather and little rainfall, and concerns are growing about the effects of climate change.

Italian military officials said the bomb found near the Lombardy village of Borgo Virgilio in July was 240 kg. He said it contained explosives.

“The bomb was found by fishermen on the banks of the Po river,” Army official Colonel Marco Nasi said in a statement.

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Nearly 3,000 residents were evacuated so bomb disposal experts could safely carry out the controlled explosion on Sunday.

Airspace and river traffic in the region were also closed for a short time.

Italy’s longest river, the Po, empties from the southwestern Alps into the Adriatic Sea. However, satellite images show that the dried up areas in the river bed are expanding due to extreme drought.

Italian authorities last month declared a state of emergency for areas around the Po river, which irrigate about a third of the country’s agricultural land.

Farmers in the Po Valley say salty seawater seeps into the river, destroying crops, as the river flow has weakened in recent months due to heat and lack of rainfall.

DROUGHT CRISIS TEAM IN FRANCE

In France, the government has formed a crisis team to tackle the historic drought that has left more than 100 municipalities without drinking water.

The prime minister’s office said it was France’s worst drought on record. While the use of water is restricted in 93 regions, water is transported to some regions by tankers.

Drought conditions are expected to continue for at least the next two weeks.

State power company EDF has had to cut production at some nuclear power plants because rivers cannot provide adequate cooling, AFP news agency reported.

It is feared that the drought, which affects almost all of France, will reduce the yield in agricultural production and aggravate the food crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.

Water shortage warnings were announced in the south of England and national water scarcity measures were announced in the Netherlands, while river water use was limited in Poland after the water level dropped to record levels, including the country’s largest river, the Vistula. Ferries across the Vistula were canceled for a week last month due to low water levels in Warsaw.

Due to the drying up of streams in the Obwalden region in the Alps in Switzerland, water was carried from the lake for cattle herds by military vehicles.

‘Drought Might Become Ordinary in EUROPE’

Scientists attribute the water shortage due to the drought affecting Europe, in part, to the increase in temperature due to climate change and the unusually low precipitation during the winter and spring seasons.

Researchers believe summer droughts could become commonplace in western Europe.

“Extreme heat events, which would have happened once every 10 years without human-induced climate change, are now happening three times in 10 years,” according to Professor Sonia Seneviratne of ETH Zurich University, speaking to the Financial Times. “It’s possible that one in two summers in ten years will be like this, and it will only get worse if we don’t stop carbon emissions.”

The latest assessment by the European Union Drought Observatory shows that up to 10 July, 13 percent of EU territory was in severe “alarm” conditions and 45 percent was in the “warning” zone, with the drought getting worse since then.

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