Italy storms claim 12 more lives
ROME: Floods have killed 12 people on the southern island of Sicily, nine of them from the same family, rescue services said on Sunday, taking 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.
The victims included children aged one, three, and 15.
Three other members of the family managed to escape, one by climbing a tree, the Agi news agency reported.
“I lost everything, I have nothing left, just my daughter,” one of the survivors, Giuseppe Giordano, told journalists.
His wife, two other children, his parents, brother, and sister all died, he said.
After flying over Casteldaccia on Sunday, Sicilian prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio described a “total disaster”.
Officials have opened an investigation to determine whether houses built near the river met legal safety norms.
In a separate incident, a 44-yearold man was found dead in his car near Vicari, also in the Palermo region.
He had been trying to reach a service station to help a colleague trapped there. A passenger in the car is still 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 region of Agrigente, a little further south on the island.
Troops were deployed to check the condition of the main roads on the Mediterranean island on Sunday.
Earlier this week, floods in Sicily closed many roads and mayors ordered schools, public parks, and underpasses shut.