The Italian city of Venice has been put on a flood alert after warnings the sea around it could rise to its highest level in thirty years. A number of streets, including the central tourist district, are already under water. Our Rome correspondent Duncan Kennedy reports:

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But the Venice Tidal Centre says that levels could go much higher. It says the sea is due to rise to one meter sixty above its normal level - the highest since 1979.

Venice is built on hundreds of islands and often experiences high water at this time of the year. The worst incident was in 1966 when the city was submerged by nearly two meters of water amid catastrophic flooding throughout Italy.

Duncan Kennedy, BBC News, Rome

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Surrounding
that are around/close by

affected
here, harmed, damaged

residents
people who live in a certain place

cut off in
isolated in, unable to leave

Tidal Centre
an institution studying and predicting tides, i.e. the cyclic rises and falls of the sea caused by the attraction of the Moon and Sun (tides occur about every twelve hours)

due to
expected to

experiences
if you experience something, it happens to you, you can feel it

high water
higher than usual levels of water, flooding

submerged by
covered by, gone under (water)

catastrophic
very bad, causing a lot of damage

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