The devastating floods that inundated parts of northeastern Italy in May were caused by a “once in two century” meteorological event, with no link to climate change being the determining factor, experts said, AFP reported and Agerpres.

Seventeen people have died and tens of thousands of residents have been forced to flee their homes after three periods of heavy rain in the past three weeks in the Emilia-Romagna region led to landslides and floods that caused extensive property damage.

Footage posted on social media showed the dramatic intervention of authorities in some cases to save the victims.

A report by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group of European and American climatologists published on Wednesday indicated that May saw the heaviest rainfall “in two centuries”.

According to the group, which aims to demonstrate a reliable link between global warming and certain meteorological phenomena, such events are not becoming more frequent or intense in this region and at this time of year.

What experts say about floods in Italy

“Precipitation extremes have not become more likely due to greenhouse gas emissions,” WWA said in a statement, acknowledging that the results were “unusual” in the context of climate change.

Warmer atmospheres can hold more moisture, often leading to more frequent and more intense rainfall around the world, the source said.

Other climate change phenomena are increasing across Italy, with a general trend towards drought, as well as changing seasons leading to less frequent but more intense downpours.

The effects of the floods in Emilia-Romagna were compounded by a two-year drought in the north of the peninsula, which left the ground dry and hard and unable to absorb water. At the same time, decades of urbanization have increased the risk of flooding.

“Our statistical results recognize the exceptional nature of such an event,” insisted David Faranda, co-author of the report and a climatologist at the Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute.

The last disaster of a comparable scale occurred more than 80 years ago

Faranda emphasized that the report does not claim that climate change had no role in these floods, but that correlation is beyond the scope of his group’s research.

“While heavy spring rains are not increasing in Emilia-Romagna, extreme rainfall is increasing in other parts of Italy,” he added.

According to the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), almost 94% of Italian municipalities are at risk of landslides, floods and coastal erosion.

The Emilia-Romagna region is at extreme risk from these phenomena, with a history of floods and landslides, but the only disaster approaching May’s in scale dates back to 1939, according to the study.