Italy’s well-known Lovers’ Arch collapses into the ocean on Valentine’s Day

[ad_1] The well-known arch of the ocean stacks at Sant’Andrea in Melendugno, Puglia, Italy , popularly referred to as Lovers’ Arch, collapsed on Valentine’s Day after sturdy storm surges and heavy rain swept throughout southern Italy.

The rocky arch, one of many best-known pure landmarks on the Adriatic coast, bought its title because it served as a backdrop for wedding ceremony proposals, selfies and postcards, and was some of the recognisable symbols of the Salento, considered one of Italy’s most heavily visited tourist areas .

“It's a devastating blow to the center,” said Melendugno’s mayor , Maurizio Cisternino. “Some of the well-known vacationer options of our shoreline and of the entire of Italy has disappeared.”

In response to native authorities, sturdy winds, tough seas and intense rainfall in current days progressively weakened the rock construction until its final collapse on Saturday. It's the most important harm inflicted by coastal erosion on the panorama of the Salento.

“Nature has been overturned: what existed 30 years in the past now not exists. We should discover the assets for an natural intervention,” Cisternino added.

“It’s like a funeral,” mentioned Melendugno’s tourism councillor, Francesco Stella.

Mediterranean cyclones, known as medicanes , embrace Cyclone Harry which struck in January, have been devastating ports, properties and roads, reshaping the construction of coastlines. Medicanes are warm-core techniques which can be changing into more and more frequent within the Mediterranean, pushed by rising sea temperatures linked to the local weather emergency.

“With the Mediterranean [experiencing] amongst its hottest years on report in 2025, hotter seas are supercharging the environment and fuelling excessive occasions,” mentioned Christian Mulder, a professor of ecology and local weather emergency on the College of Catania in Sicily.

The damaging power of those cyclones, with winds exceeding 60mph (97km/h) and seas whipped into waves of as much as 15 metres, has left an extended path of devastation, destroying ports, damaging properties in addition to tearing up roads and consuming away long stretches of coastline in southern Italy .

On 25 January, after torrential rain introduced by Cyclone Harry, a devastating landslide tore away an entire slope in the town of Niscemi , Sicily, making a 4km-long chasm. Roads collapsed, vehicles have been swallowed and entire sections of the city cloth plunged into the valley under.