The Rampaging Po

It began when unusually heavy rains, pounding down the Alps into northern Italy, swelled the Po. Italy's largest river went on rampage, smashing dikes, crumbling farmhouses, sending truckloads of refugees into Milan. Then came a disastrous coincidence: roaring winds from the east pounded the Adriatic, rolling up high waves which pushed against the Po's outlet, backed the flood waters up on the land. Italy, a land which has often played host to one or more of the four dread Riders of the Apocalypse, lay gasping last week under the worst flood in a century. The loss so far: thousands of miles of valuable farmlands, more than 150 lives and 30,000 cattle; relief and reconstruction funds will be equivalent to more than a quarter of Italy's annual budget.

The cry for help that came up from northern Italy was swiftly answered. Britain and the U.S. sent amphibious aircraft, helicopters, "weasels" and "ducks" from Germany, Malta and Trieste. These, together with a native fishing fleet, carried out a Dunkirk-like evacuation of the flooded areas. At week's end, 200,000 homeless Italians were queueing up for meals before Italian army field kitchens, and sleeping in jammed schools, churches and homes in such fabled cities as Verona, Padua, Vicinza and Cremona.

A few fought off rescuers, and standing with famished, snapping dogs and starved, dazed cattle, insisted on hanging on to little patches of still-dry ground. Around them eddied the murky water, bearing straw from the harvest, pieces of furniture, bobbing coffins released from cemeteries. Near Rovigo, a truck loaded with refugees was swept off the highway by a jet of water from a bursting dike; 33 of 40 passengers were drowned.

The Communists did their best to exploit the disaster. First they spread the rumor that U.S. A-bomb experiments had caused all the rainfall and the flood. A surprising number of Italians seemed to believe such nonsense. Not missing a trick, the Communists then demanded that the Rome government divert arms appropriations to flood relief.

At week's end, as though Italy had not suffered enough, typhoid threatened to break out. Engineers surveying the area concluded that it would be months before flood waters receded from the Po delta, bread basket of Italy.

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