Italy storm claims 12 more lives, 30 dead
ROME: Floods have killed 12 people on the southern Italian island of Sicily, nine of them from the same family, rescue services said, raising the week’s toll across Italy past 30.
Six Italian regions remain on high alert for storms.
The bodies of nine people were found in their house in Casteldaccia in the Palermo region, next to a small river which had burst its banks, rescue services said.
Among the victims was a oneyear-old baby and children aged three and 15.
Three other members of the same family managed to escape, one of them by climbing a tree, the Agi news agency reported.
“It is an immense tragedy,” the local mayor said yesterday.
In a separate incident, a 44-yearold man was found dead in his car near Vicari, also in Palermo.
He had been trying to reach a service station where he managed to help a colleague trapped there. A passenger in the car is missing.
Rescue workers are also searching for a doctor forced by the storms to abandon his car near the town of Corleone after trying to drive to work at the hospital there.
Two other people, a man and a woman, died after their car was caught in the floods in the Agrigente region, further south on the island.
Troops were deployed to check the conditions of the main roads yesterday.
Earlier this week, floods in Sicily closed many roads and mayors ordered schools, public parks and underpasses shut.
Italy has been hit by a series of deadly storms over the past week, especially in the north and around Venice.