Storm Boris is battering the north-east and central regions of Italy, days after causing widespread flooding in central Europe.
More than 1,000 residents in the north-eastern region of Emilia Romagna have been evacuated, while towns in the central region of Marche of Italy reported serious flooding and disruption. There are no reports of any casualties.
Schools across Emilia Romagna have closed. Some roads were impacted by landslides and railway traffic has been severely disrupted.
Authorities warned residents to stay out of their basements and to relocate to the upper floors of their homes.
Schools, libraries and parks were shut in Ravenna, and the University of Bologna cancelled exams and lessons.
The city of Faenza has been the worst-affected, with the levels of the two rivers crossing it rising rapidly overnight.
Residents quoted by local media said they had had to leave their homes in dinghies in the middle of the night. High river levels have also caused the sewage system to overflow.
But authorities in nearby Bologna said on Thursday morning that river levels in the city were under control, although the red weather alert is set to continue until Friday for most of the region.
For residents of Emilia-Romagna, Storm Boris echoes the severe – and deadly – flooding the region faced just over a year ago.
In May 2023, 13 people died after six months’ rainfall fell in a day and a half, leading to more than 20 rivers bursting their banks.
Tens of thousands of people had to flee their homes and the flooding caused billions of euros of damage.
Italy is the latest country to suffer the fury of Storm Boris – a low pressure system which swept across Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Austria, killing at least 23 people.
Although the worst appears to be over across much of the region, the levels of the Danube River are still rising in Hungary. Prime Minister Victor Orban said on Wednesday the water level in Budapest was expected to peak on Saturday afternoon or evening, but that it would be lower than record levels seen in 2013.
The leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria are due to meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Wroclaw later today to discuss aid for the flood-hit region.
The city, in southwestern Poland, has also been threatened by high river levels for days.
The recent events in central Europe fit with expectations of more extreme rainfall in a warming world, although it is not yet possible to quantify exactly how much of a role climate change has played.
However, climate scientists have been warning for years about extreme rainfall events like these occurring as the planet warms.
Medical staff on the front line of the battle against mpox in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have told the BBC they are desperate for vaccines to arrive so they can stem the rate of new infections.
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At a treatment centre in South Kivu province that the BBC visited in the epicentre of the outbreak, they say more patients are arriving every day – especially babies – and there is a shortage of essential equipment.
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Mpox – formerly known as monkeypox – is a highly contagious disease and has killed at least 635 people in DR Congo this year.
Even though 200,000 vaccines, donated by the European Commission, were flown into the capital, Kinshasa, last week, they are yet to be transported across this vast country – and it could be several weeks before they reach South Kivu.
“We’ve learned from social media that the vaccine is already available,” Emmanuel Fikiri, a nurse working at the clinic that has been turned into a specialist centre to tackle the virus, told the BBC.
He said this was the first time he had treated patients with mpox and every day he feared catching it and passing it on to his own children – aged seven, five and one.
“You saw how I touched the patients because that’s my job as a nurse. So, we’re asking the government to help us by first giving us the vaccines.”
The reason it will take time to transport the vaccines is that they need to be stored at a precise temperature – below freezing – to maintain their potency, plus they need to be sent to rural areas of South Kivu, like Kamituga, Kavumu and Lwiro, where the outbreak is rife.
The lack of infrastructure and bad roads mean that helicopters could possibly be used to drop some of the vaccines, which will further drive up costs in a country that is already struggling financially.
At the community clinic, Dr Pacifique Karanzo appeared fatigued and downbeat having been rushed off his feet all morning.
Although he wore a face shield, I could see the sweat running down his face. He said he was saddened to see patients sharing beds.
“You will even see that the patients are sleeping on the floor,” he told me, clearly exasperated.
“The only support we have already had is a little medicine for the patients and water. As far as other challenges are concerned, there’s still no staff motivation.”
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