Heavy rain in Milan causes flooding overnight

On Thursday morning, parts of Milan and the surrounding province woke up to localised flooding after intense rainfall throughout the night.

The municipal civil protection agency warned that the river Seveso was reaching a critical level on Thursday morning, the Milan edition of Corriere della Sera reported.

“We are not on a weather alert, but tonight in the north of Milan (Cinisello Balsamo and Milano Lambrate) 30mm of rain fell between 1 and 4am,” the Councilor for Security and Civil Protection, Marco Granelli, wrote in an update on Facebook at 6am.

The agency warned residents to take precautions on Thursday and avoid flooded areas as unstable weather was forecast to continue throughout the day.

Worker dies in forklift accident

A forklift truck driver in the southern Italian town of Gioia del Colle died as a result of his injuries after reportedly being thrown from the forklift he was operating on Tuesday, news agency Ansa reported.

“I was deeply dismayed to learn of the dramatic news of the death of one of our fellow citizens in his workplace,” Giovanni Mastrangelo, mayor of Gioia del Colle, said on social media.

“On behalf of the entire community, I express all my… condolences to the family and to all the people affected by this immense pain,” he said.

Workplace deaths and accidents are regularly reported by the media in Italy, where almost 800 deaths at work were recorded last year, according to official statistics.

Italy’s trade unions slam government tax break as ‘insult’

The national May Day event of the CGIL, CISL and UIL trade unions took place in northern Italy’s Friuli Venezia Giulia this year, dedicated to Europe, Ansa reported.

“Let’s build a Europe of peace, work and social justice together” was the slogan chosen by the three unions, and speakers addressed low wages, the cost of living and safety at work.

General secretary of the CGIL Maurizio Landini called the government’s newly announced 100-euro tax deduction for single-income and single-parent families earning less than 28,000 euros “an insult”.

“Today is not a celebration, it is a day of mobilisation. It cannot be a celebration as long as there is even one death at work,” he said.

Snakes feature in Italian mountain saint procession

Snakes were once again the highlight of an ancient religious procession held every May 1st that attracts thousands of visitors to a mountainous village in central Italy.

Every year, villagers wrap a statue of Abbot Saint Dominic in snakes in the weeks leading up to the procession, before carrying it from the church and down Cocullo’s narrow streets.

Thousands of visitors again flocked from all over the peninsula and even abroad to join the procession alongside a few hundred locals on Wednesday, AFP reported.

The procession marks a rare peaceful interaction between snakes and humans, who often hunt and kill the reptiles despite being a protected and declining species.

This time-honoured tradition is also a way of monitoring the population and health of snakes in the region.

According to a recent study by the University of Bari in southern Italy, studying snake behaviour could help scientists predict earthquakes.