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A long-delayed flood barrier successfully protected Venice from a high tide for the first time on Saturday, bringing relief and smiles to the lagoon city following years of repeated inundations.


"Today, everything is dry. We stopped the sea", city mayor Luigi Brugnaro told reporters after raising a glass in celebration with some of the engineers and officials responsible for the multi-billion euro project known as Mose.
The network of 78 bright yellow barriers that guard the entrance to the delicate Venetian lagoon lifted from the sea bed as the tide, driven by strong winds and rain, started to climb.

The worst floods in more than 50 years left St Mark’s Square submerged under a meter of water last November, underlining the growing environmental threat to one of the world’s most famous cultural sites.

Venice’s floods, “acqua alta” (high water) in Italian, are caused by a combination of factors exacerbated by climate change - from rising sea levels and unusually high tides to land subsidence that has caused the ground level of the city to sink.
Mose is designed to protect Venice from tides of up to 3 meters, well beyond current records.

MOSE, a system of 78 hydraulic gates, once again proved its effectiveness on Thursday 15-10-2020, saving Venice from a tide that Italian officials predicted would have reached a height of 135 centimeters. At that level, about half of the famous Italian city would have been covered by water.

The local tidal authority announced on Twitter that the tide had reached 141 centimeters in areas not protected by MOSE, while the tidal level in Venice was only 52 centimeters, and the markets and alleys of the famous Italian city remained dry.