Section B·Page 12
Wednesday, October 18, 2000
The University Daily Kansan
Check school email Anywhere!
For comments, contact Lori O'Toole at 864-4810 or e-mail ed
Floods threaten historic Italian sites
The Associated Press
PIACENZA, Italy — Italy hurried more than 15,000 people from the path of two raging rivers yesterday as flood waters that brought death in Alpine towns bore down on the medieval villages and cities of the northern Italian plains.
resterday, emergency crews evacuated whole villages in the paths of the Po, Italy's longest river, and the Ticino that feeds into it from the Alps.
"Even those who were reluctant to leave their homes, like the elderly, eventually were convinced," said the Rev. Pier Luigi Rossi, one of a few people still in the riverside village of San Rocco al Porto yesterday afternoon.
water was climbing within inches of the sandbags lining the Po, a few steps from Rossi's
The death toll in Italy and Switzerland rose to 25, with the mud-caked bodies of a 1-year-old Italian boy and a woman believed to be his mother among the latest uncovered. A total of 21 people in the two countries were missing and feared dead.
The Po divides the rich agricultural regions of Lombardy and Emilia Romagna, emptying into the lagoons of Venice. Yesterday, it hit its highest level in at least a half-century; its height at Piacenza was the highest ever recorded there.
The Po had already burst its banks at some points. By last night, the flood crest was passing the old trade town of Piacenza, home to columned Romanesque churches and a Botticelli painting*
cached, the water generally has not yet threatened works of art, said Vincenzo Pandolfino of the Culture Ministry's art protection squad.
While there has been some flooding of churches, where much of Italy's cultural patrimony is
In both countries authorities said overall damage would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Officials were thinking of opening upstream dikes to ease the threat to communities downstream, said Nerio Nesi, public works minister.
"We are in a state of anxiety, of high emergency," Nesi told reporters, adding, "The situation now could become very dangerous."
Along the Ticino, water lapped at the third floors of evacuated palazzos in the Roman-era Lombard town of Pavia. Firefighters ferried food and clean water to the few holdouts who refused to leave.
church. He, too, was leaving soon.
Italian public works minister
The floods and landslides started Saturday in southern Switzerland and northern Italy after days of pounding rain. Flood water roared out of the Alps and brought Lake Maggiore, on the Swiss-Italian border, to its highest level in 160 years.
Ebola claims 37 in Uganda; more likely infected
"We are in a state of anxiety, of high emergency. The situation now could become very dangerous."
The Associated Press
GULU, Uganda — Dressed in surgical gowns, flimsy masks and knee-high rubber boots, the nurses at Locar Hospital know that with each day that passes they have a greater chance of becoming infected with the deadly Ebola virus.
One doctor and two nurses were among the 37 who have died so far from the terrifying hemorrhagic fever that can be passed through a simple handshake — including two more victims who died Tuesday. And with 10 more suspected cases identified each day, their workload will only increase.
Okat Lokach, acting director of health services for Gulu district, said the outbreak has so far been traced to a housewife who died around Sept. 7. She was buried according to local tradition, which involves the ritual cleansing of the dead by family and friends. The next two victims were her daughter and mother.
Other health workers have fanned out across the countryside, where officials suspect Ebola has already infected more than 81 people.
Other mourners returned to their villages, fell ill and infected their friends and family. It wasn't until Oct. 7 that the first case was seen in a hospital. But Lokach said the search for who infected the housewife was still on, and the disease may have surfaced even earlier.
There is no blood test for Ebola, and a case can be confirmed only through sophisticated blood analysis requiring special equipment not available in Uganda. Health workers have begun quarantining anyone complaining of flu-like symptoms, diarrhea or vomiting, the earliest signs of exposure. Some 90 percent of confirmed Ebola victims die.
begin seeping through the skin, producing painful blisters.
Ebola is spread through contact with bodily fluids, including saliva, blood and mucus, though it is not spread through the air. Victims "bleed out" through the nose, mouth and eyes. Blood and other bodily fluids also
hours. It is still spreading until we can get people into the field and identify all of those infected," said Nestor Ndayimirje, a World Health Organization epidemiologist helping Ugandan authorities trace the source of the Ebola outbreak, the nation's first.
become very dangerous.
"We are adding about 10 cases every 24
Experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control were expected to leave for Uganda on Tuesday to investigate the outbreak and trace its origins.