Venetians furious over failure to activate Moses barrier and protect city from flooding

Angry Venetians have been left mopping out their homes and shops after authorities failed to activate a multi-billion euro sea barrier to save the city from flooding.

Tests in recent months demonstrated that the Moses barrier is capable of shielding the World Heritage city from high tides, but when a surge in the sea level happened on Tuesday, it was not deployed.

Weather forecasters had predicted a 1.25 metre high tide and Moses – a series of barriers which can close off the Venetian lagoon from the Adriatic – is normally not activated until the tide reaches 1.3 metres.

But a combination of heavy rain and an unexpected bora wind, which blows from the north-east, pushed the high tide to 1.38 metres, flooding St Mark’s Square and many other parts of Venice to knee-high level.

By that time, it was too late to raise the barriers, giant hinged gates that are bolted to the sea floor and protect the three openings to the lagoon.

“The situation is terrible, we are under water,” said Carlo Alberto Tessein, the guardian of St Mark’s Basilica, which dominates St Mark’s Square and is prone to flooding because it occupies the lowest part of the city. “Floods like this make the basilica ever more fragile.”

“To have something like Moses and not use it is unfathomable,” said Claudio Vernier, the president of an association of business owners in St Mark’s Square. “Five centimetres more of high tide makes all the difference.”

Iginio Mascari, who runs a spice shop near the Rialto Bridge, also said the barriers should have been raised. “Any fisherman knows that the weather in the lagoon changes from one moment to another,” he told La Repubblica newspaper.

With more high tides predicted on Thursday and Friday, the mayor of Venice said protocols for deploying Moses needed to be reviewed.

Luigi Brugnaro said the city should have more say in whether to raise the barriers. That call is currently made by Rome-based Elisabetta Spitz, the government-appointed commissioner of the infrastructure project.

“It is the city of Venice that must be able to make the decision,” said Mr Brugnaro, who has been mayor for the last five years.

“We need to find a system which will make us faster and more flexible to react. If the person making the decision is too far away, we risk having the situation that we see now.”