Six killed as floods hit Italian city

Torrential rain in Italy triggered flooding that killed at least six people on Sunday in the Tuscan port of Leghorn, including a family of four who were trapped by rising water in a basement. Two other people were reported missing.

Strong winds toppled trees and parked cars were nearly submerged by floodwaters that left the streets clogged with mud.

“The city is literally devastated,” said Leghorn mayor Filippo Nogarin, adding that “a crazy amount of rain” lashed the area in a few hours.

The Italian news agency ANSA said the bodies of a fouryear-old boy, his parents and his grandfather were found in the flooded basement of their two-family home. Before dying, the grandfather man- aged to save the boy’s sister, state TV reported.

Leghorn province’s interior ministry official, Anna Maria Manzone, said that by late Sunday afternoon two people were still missing. The six dead included two elderly people who died in a hillside hamlet near Leghorn.

Nogarin appealed for volunteers to help. The city of 170,000 is also a popular spot for tourists.