VENICE • The Italian city of Venice was hit by the highest tide in more than 50 years, with tourists wading through flooded streets to seek shelter as a fierce wind whipped up waves in St Mark's Square.
The exceptionally intense "acqua alta", or high waters, peaked at 1.87m as the flood alarm sounded across the city of canals, the tide monitoring centre said.
"We're facing an exceptionally high tide. Everyone has been mobilised to cope with the emergency," Venice's mayor Luigi Brugnaro tweeted on Tuesday.
The Italian news agency ANSA said two people had been killed on the small barrier island of Pellestrina; one was a 78-year-old who was electrocuted while performing repairs on his flooded home, and the other death could have been related to natural causes.
Only once since records began in 1923 has the water crept even higher, reaching 1.94m in 1966.
Tables and chairs set outside cafes for aperitifs bobbed along alleyways in the dark, as locals and tourists alike waved aloft inside-out umbrellas, the water slopping over the top of even the highest waders.
Water taxis attempting to drop people off at the glamorous and historic hotels along the Grand Canal discovered that the gangways had been washed away, leaving passengers to clamber through windows.
"It will be a long night," Mr Brugnaro tweeted, saying that as the water level began to drop again, "the fears of a few hours ago are now being replaced by an assessment of the damage done". The exceptional flood was "a wound that will leave a permanent mark", he said.
A couple of French tourists said they had "effectively swum" after some of the wooden platforms placed around the city in flood-prone areas overturned. Pieces of antique furniture could be seen submerged in hotels and homes.
Since 2003, a massive infrastructure project has been under way to protect the famed city, but it has been plagued by cost overruns, scandals and delays.
The plan calls for the construction of 78 floating gates to protect Venice's lagoon during high tides.
St Mark's Square and its basilica are particularly affected by the high tides, as they are located in one of the lowest parts of the city.
Mr Pierpaolo Campostrini, a member of St Mark's council, said the scale of the flooding on Tuesday had been seen only five times in the long history of the basilica; its construction began in 828 and it was rebuilt after a fire in 1063. Most worryingly, he said, three of those five episodes occurred in the last 20 years, most recently last year.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, WASHINGTON POST
