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Reducing Pandemic Risks Might Revive 2,300 Abandoned Italian Villages

A deserted San Marco square in Venice on Sunday (March 8), the first day of the lockdown. AFP.
A deserted San Marco square in Venice on Sunday (March 8), the first day of the lockdown. AFP.
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Reducing Pandemic Risks Might Revive 2,300 Abandoned Italian Villages

A deserted San Marco square in Venice on Sunday (March 8), the first day of the lockdown. AFP.
A deserted San Marco square in Venice on Sunday (March 8), the first day of the lockdown. AFP.

Italian architects are urging to reduce the risk of future pandemics by encouraging people to leave cities and repopulate abandoned villages in the mountains and countryside.

Simply returning to life as it was before the new coronavirus ravaged northern Italy and forced a nationwide lockdown would be foolish, said architect Stefano Boeri, who is known for his ecologically friendly skyscrapers in Milan.

"Normality is one of the causes of this disaster. It's time to take courageous and pragmatic decisions," said Boeri, whose tree-covered, high-rise apartment blocks dominate the skyline in the capital of the Lombardy region.

According to AFP, Boeri has joined up with other architects, sociologists, anthropologists and town planners to draw up suggestions for how the emergency can be used to change the way people live and prevent cities from becoming "contamination bombs."

Massimiliano Fuksas, one of Europe's most renowned architects, said he predicted a sharp jump in people leaving the cities for the countryside as the lockdown gradually lifts, just as happened in Italy in the 1970s.
"Young people fled cities beset by terrorism, the economic crisis and drugs. It'll happen again," he said in an interview with the Repubblica daily.

"Scientists say the virus is weaker in the countryside, not just because there are fewer social contacts but because the wind blows, there's less metal and plastic, and if you're close to the sea the air is full of iodine," added Fuksas, who is behind the Zenith music hall in Strasbourg and Milan Exhibition Center.

Italy has 5,800 villages with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants each. More than 2,300 of those villages are virtually abandoned, according to Boeri.

From the mountaintop hamlet of Ligosullo in northern Italy to the medieval village of Casalvecchio Siculo in the Sicilian south, numerous already-small territories have shrunk by over half in the last 50 years, official figures show.

The government could "adopt" them and lure new residents there, thus relieving pressure on cities, by providing tax incentives as well as improving transport links and installing broadband to allow working from home.

Italy's culture ministry is mulling the idea of subsidizing holidays to help the tourism industry recover once the lockdown ends, and hopes to prevent overcrowded beaches by persuading some Italians to visit historic hamlets instead.

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Varieties

Texas Is Drenched by Heavy Rains as Forecasters Warn That More Storms Could Bring Dangerous Floods

In this handout photo provided by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, game wardens walk through high waters from heavy rains in Uvalde County, Texas, on Tuesday, July 14, 2026. (Texas Parks and Wildlife Department via AP)
In this handout photo provided by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, game wardens walk through high waters from heavy rains in Uvalde County, Texas, on Tuesday, July 14, 2026. (Texas Parks and Wildlife Department via AP)
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Texas Is Drenched by Heavy Rains as Forecasters Warn That More Storms Could Bring Dangerous Floods

In this handout photo provided by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, game wardens walk through high waters from heavy rains in Uvalde County, Texas, on Tuesday, July 14, 2026. (Texas Parks and Wildlife Department via AP)
In this handout photo provided by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, game wardens walk through high waters from heavy rains in Uvalde County, Texas, on Tuesday, July 14, 2026. (Texas Parks and Wildlife Department via AP)

Heavy downpours in South Texas washed out highways and stranded motorists Tuesday as forecasters warned that a threat of more severe weather could bring dangerous flooding to already drenched counties near the border with Mexico.

Storms dumped up to a foot of rain in some rural areas of Texas, leading to dozens of high-water rescues across the region and officials shutting down portions of a busy highway for hours near Uvalde, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) west of San Antonio.

A flood watch also included Kerr County, where catastrophic flooding last year along the Guadalupe River killed more than 100 people.

No deaths or injuries Tuesday were immediately reported.

The National Weather Service warned that storms overnight could dump more than a foot of additional rain to some places into Wednesday, creating potentially catastrophic impacts from flash flooding in areas west of San Antonio.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for dozens of counties.

“Intense rain rates and compounding effects from multiple rounds of storms will result in a dangerous flash flooding threat through Thursday,” the National Weather Service said.

Authorities on Tuesday posted videos of a rescue crew in a boat down flooded streets and one vehicle being swept away by fast-moving waters. Five people were rescued by members of the Texas Game Warden Search and Rescue Team and four were rescued by a local game warden, said Maggie Berger, a spokesperson for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

In Uvalde, officials said there had been at least two dozen water rescues. They opened a local event center for anyone displaced by flooding. In Sabinal, officials were also making plans for a shelter.

Varieties

Scientists Sail for Greenland to Study Glacier Melt Risk

Sam Smith, an Operations Engineer, alongside Auto Sub Boaty McBoatface aboard the RRS Sir David Attenborough ahead of a mission to Greenland to study how warming affects the ice sheet and improve forecasts of its impact on the Atlantic, in Harwich, Britain, July 14, 2026. REUTERS/Chris Radburn
Sam Smith, an Operations Engineer, alongside Auto Sub Boaty McBoatface aboard the RRS Sir David Attenborough ahead of a mission to Greenland to study how warming affects the ice sheet and improve forecasts of its impact on the Atlantic, in Harwich, Britain, July 14, 2026. REUTERS/Chris Radburn
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Scientists Sail for Greenland to Study Glacier Melt Risk

Sam Smith, an Operations Engineer, alongside Auto Sub Boaty McBoatface aboard the RRS Sir David Attenborough ahead of a mission to Greenland to study how warming affects the ice sheet and improve forecasts of its impact on the Atlantic, in Harwich, Britain, July 14, 2026. REUTERS/Chris Radburn
Sam Smith, an Operations Engineer, alongside Auto Sub Boaty McBoatface aboard the RRS Sir David Attenborough ahead of a mission to Greenland to study how warming affects the ice sheet and improve forecasts of its impact on the Atlantic, in Harwich, Britain, July 14, 2026. REUTERS/Chris Radburn

An international team of around 80 scientists and crew will set sail on polar research ship the RSS David Attenborough for Greenland this week to investigate whether the island's rapidly melting glaciers could disrupt a major Atlantic Ocean current system and with it Europe's climate.

The five- to six-week mission departs Britain after the country and Western Europe just experienced the warmest June months on record, disrupting power supplies, shutting schools and causing excess deaths.

"The heat waves in the UK and in Europe the last few months have really driven home ⁠that it's difficult ⁠for us to adapt to even quite small changes in our climate," Kelly Hogan, a marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey which is leading the mission, told Reuters in an interview on board the vessel.

The expedition is part of a £20 million project called GIANT - Greenland Ice sheet to AtlaNtic Tipping points - which seeks to understand how the glaciers melt and break into the ocean ⁠and the impact this has.

Scientists are concerned that the melting freshwater could disrupt a system of rotating ocean current that helps to regulate Europe’s climate, which could lead to more extreme weather and rising sea levels.

Ship Captain Matt Neill, who made his first trip to Antarctica as a cadet with BAS in 2011, said he has already witnessed firsthand the impact of the world's changing climate.

"Lots of the glaciers are all receding very very quickly, and much more than you would think... So it's even more important than than ever during these very dynamic times that we are out there and gathering the ⁠data and ⁠improving the models," he said.

Officially the ship is named after the veteran naturalist Attenborough, but to many Britons it will always be known as "Boaty McBoatface", after that suggestion topped a public poll to name the vessel in 2016.

The name has instead been given to a high tech submersible on the vessel which will dive 1,500 meters below the glacier mélange – a mixture of sea ice and snow that builds up where the glacier meets the sea - mapping its geometry and how it influences the glacier.

"It's going to be collecting a lot of data that's never really been collected before," Sam Smith, operations engineer at the National Oceanography Centre, said.

Data collected from the mission will feed into next-generation climate models and an early-warning system for glacier collapse.

Varieties

Japan Family Finds Bear in Kitchen, Calls Police

This frame grab from an AFP TV video shows a small female black bear tranquillized on the ground as wild bear experts Akiko Takii (R) and Shinshu University professor Shigeyuki Izumiyama collect blood and fur samples for academic research in Ina, Nagano Prefecture, on July 14, 2026, before the researchers weigh and measure the bear, believed to be about 18 months old, before releasing it back into the wild. (Photo by Harumi OZAWA / AFP)
This frame grab from an AFP TV video shows a small female black bear tranquillized on the ground as wild bear experts Akiko Takii (R) and Shinshu University professor Shigeyuki Izumiyama collect blood and fur samples for academic research in Ina, Nagano Prefecture, on July 14, 2026, before the researchers weigh and measure the bear, believed to be about 18 months old, before releasing it back into the wild. (Photo by Harumi OZAWA / AFP)
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Japan Family Finds Bear in Kitchen, Calls Police

This frame grab from an AFP TV video shows a small female black bear tranquillized on the ground as wild bear experts Akiko Takii (R) and Shinshu University professor Shigeyuki Izumiyama collect blood and fur samples for academic research in Ina, Nagano Prefecture, on July 14, 2026, before the researchers weigh and measure the bear, believed to be about 18 months old, before releasing it back into the wild. (Photo by Harumi OZAWA / AFP)
This frame grab from an AFP TV video shows a small female black bear tranquillized on the ground as wild bear experts Akiko Takii (R) and Shinshu University professor Shigeyuki Izumiyama collect blood and fur samples for academic research in Ina, Nagano Prefecture, on July 14, 2026, before the researchers weigh and measure the bear, believed to be about 18 months old, before releasing it back into the wild. (Photo by Harumi OZAWA / AFP)

A family in northern Japan called police after finding a bear in their kitchen, an official said Wednesday, as anxiety over the animals grows following a surge in deadly maulings.

Bears have killed at least five people in Japan since April 1, all in the northern region of Tohoku, after a record 13 fatal attacks across the country in the last fiscal year, according to the environment ministry.

Police in the northern region of Iwate, which is part of Tohoku, received a call Monday evening from a family saying a bear had intruded into their home.

The animal "opened the fridge, scattering its content nearby," a local police official told AFP, declining to be named.

Footprints suggest the bear then "made its way out through a back door adjacent to the kitchen and also hunted through a bin for food waste," the official said.

The incident occurred in the town of Shizukuishi, where at least four other households have reported bear intrusions since July 5, he added.

In recent months there has been a jump in sightings after the bears emerged from hibernation, and more bears have been straying into towns and cities.

In June, dozens of police, hunters and city officials needed four days to trap a bear roaming Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, forcing mass school closures.

Before that another bear described as "extremely intelligent" -- it opened a window and turned on a tap -- attacked four people at two factories in Fukushima and remained at large for days.

Scientists attribute the sharp rise in incidents to an increase in the bears' population, a declining number of people in rural areas and other factors including variations in the availability of bears' usual food.