Nine die as floods sweep Sicily
Nine people from two families were killed when floods swept into their holiday villa in Sicily, as the death toll from ten days of violent storms in Italy rose to more than 30.
A river burst its banks and flooded the property near the town of Casteldaccia in the Palermo region as the families sat down to dinner on Saturday, local time. The victims included a oneyear-old baby and children aged three and 15. Giuseppe Giordano, a car parts trader from Palermo, survived by clinging to a tree. His brother-in-law Luca Rughoo, who had gone with his daughter and niece to buy cakes, also escaped.
The Milicia river was swollen by torrential rain and flooded the one-storey building up to the roof. Prosecutors said that it appeared to have been built within a 150-metre safety zone that should normally be left undeveloped on either side of a river.
Elsewhere in Sicily, a doctor died as he tried to get to work in the mountain town of Corleone and two tourists in a rental car, believed to be Germans, died when the road they were driving on became flooded.
Giuseppe Conte, the Italian prime minister, visited the island by helicopter to inspect the devastation caused by days of torrential rain on mountainous territory where building regulations are often flouted.
Matteo Salvini, the interior minister, toured the northeast of Italy to inspect damage caused last week by floods and ferocious gales, which razed millions of pine trees in the Alps.
He was criticised after he posted a photograph on Facebook showing himself smiling and giving a thumbs-up sign in Venice before setting out for the mountains. Many remote villages have been without water, electricity and gas for days as residents work to clear debris. Luca Zaia, governor of the Veneto region, described the storms as a ‘‘catastrophe’’ and said that repairing the damage would cost euros 1 billion.
Officials in northern Italy warned that the disaster could also have a devastating impact on the forthcoming ski season, a big source of income for many mountain communities. ‘‘It was a typhoon and it has carried everything away with it,’’ said Stefano Illing, president of the company that operates the ski lifts in the Arabba-Marmolada area. ‘‘Generators don’t produce enough power to operate the lifts. If snow and ice arrive within the next ten days we can say goodbye to the winter season.’’
– The Times