Mountain floods wreak havoc in Italy, France
PARIS — Italian firefighters rescued 25 people trapped on the French side of a high mountain pass by severe flooding that killed two people in Italy, while 15 were stuck in a train station for the night and eight more remained missing Saturday in France.
A storm that moved overnight across southeastern France into northwestern Italy caused major flooding on both sides of the border, destroying bridges, blocking roads and isolating communities.
In Italy, a firefighter was killed during a rescue operation in the mountainous northern region of Val d’Aosta. A search team found a body in the Piedmont region’s Vercelli province, where a man had been swept away by floodwater.
The Italian firefighters used a helicopter to ferry 17 people to safety from the French town of Vievola, including a woman with two grandchildren. A bulldozer fetched another eight people who managed to climb the Col de Tende, a high mountain pass linking France and Italy, to a tunnel.
Fifteen more people were taking shelter in the Vievola train station after the operation to rescue them was put off until daylight.
The spokesman for Italy’s firefighters, Luca Cari, said a search was ongoing for a missing shepherd who was pulled into flood waters on Col de Tende. His brother managed to grab onto a tree and was saved, while authorities were searching on the French side for the shepherd.
The situation at the tunnel on the high mountain pass was complicated by the fact that French emergency responders cannot access their side due to flood damage, Cari said.
Unrelenting rainfall overnight hit levels not seen since 1958 in northern Italy’s Piedmont region, where as much as 630 millimeres of rain fell in a 24 hour period, according to the Italian civil protection agency.