During the General Audience on August 22, 2018, Pope Francis expressed his solidarity following the flash floods in Calabria, in southern Italy, two days earlier.
On greeting the Italian-speaking pilgrims present in Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father recalled this tragedy, which left some ten dead in the flash floods of the Raganello torrent, caused by severe weather.
Remembering hikers from different Italian regions, who lost their life “tragically” in this catastrophe, the Pontiff entrusted them “to the merciful goodness of God,” and he expressed his “spiritual closeness to their relatives and also to the wounded.”
