Venice had not faced a disaster of this magnitude in the last half-century. The city is a favorite Travel destination and it was plummeted by rains and bad weather. The result was flooding of popular tourist sites and people were forced to wade through the streets to move from one place to another. St Mark's Square is located in one of the low-lying parts of the city and it was at the receiving end. This was the sixth time in 1,200 years that St Mark's Basilica was flooded and four of these were within the past two decades. The city sees a large number of Tourists every day and the floods had a direct effect on businesses.

When the bad weather takes the form of unprecedented floods and is aggravated by sea-level rise, the administration remains a helpless spectator.

BBC quoted the tide-monitoring center saying that the level of water in Venice had risen to 6ft and only once, in 1966, had it gone higher. This takes into account records maintained since 1923. Images on social media showed the condition of the people, mostly tourists, trying to brave the situation in their own way. It disturbed their tour schedules and they were struggling to enjoy their vacations.

Venice Mayor blames climate change

A couple of deaths occurred on the island of Pellestrina.

One of these was due to electrocution when the person tried to start a pump in his home. Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro described the situation in the city as dramatic and mentioned declaring a state of disaster. He added that it was a result of climate change and said the flood would "leave a permanent mark." Venice is a tourist paradise and even though three waterbuses sank and some boats were stranded, the tourists went ahead with their sightseeing activities.

BBC goes on to add that there is a project to protect the city of Venice from flooding. It has been underway since 2003 but progress is slow due to various reasons.

The plan envisages constructing floating gates to offer protection to the city during high tide.

Floods in Venice affect tourism

According to Sky News, Venice is in the grip of severe floods not seen there in more than 50 years. The flooding has affected tourism - the Italian city is a popular tourist destination. Many of the city's historic squares are underwater and visitors had a tough time trying to move about. They had to rely on temporary platforms above the water. There are fears that floodwaters could damage the historical church of Saint Mark's Basilica. It faced floods last year as well and its administrator said it aged 20 years in a single day. It seems the water could erode the foundation of buildings.

Incidentally, the authorities plan to restrict tourist access to La Pelosa Beach in northwest Sardinia. The numbers will be limited to 1,500 people per day, and there will be a fee for each entrant. The funds will be for maintaining and monitoring the beach. This is according to Stintino Mayor Antonio Diana. He wants to protect the white sand paradise, which has been suffering due to its popularity.
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