Floods carry woman’s body for 12 miles in northern Italy

Villager swept as far as coast after region pummelled by half annual average rainfall in two days

THE death toll from devastating floods that hit northern Italy rose to eight last night, with the body of a woman swept down a river to the Adriatic Sea.

The 60-year-old was found on a beach near Cesenatico, 12 miles from where she had disappeared in Ronta di Cesena. Her 70-year-old husband also died in the flooding.

Several others were missing after rain lashed the two regions of Marche and Emilia-romagna, with 500mm in just two days – half the annual average.

More than 20 towns were awash in muddy floodwaters. In Forli, Gian Luca Zattini, the mayor, wrote on Facebook: “The city is on its knees. It’s the end of the world.”

This weekend’s Emilia-romagna Formula 1 Grand Prix at Imola was cancelled, with organisers saying that the authorities needed to concentrate on helping people affected by the flooding.

Around 13,000 were evacuated from their homes, some rescued by kayak and others on the backs of police officers wading through chest-high water. An elderly couple was rescued from the roof of their house by a Coast Guard helicopter, which winched them to safety.

Images showed locals swimming through floods which inundated towns and villages across the two regions. A woman and her toddler, who were caught in deep water, were rescued by locals who had to swim to reach them.

A concrete road bridge that spanned the Idice river near Bologna crumbled and was swept away. Around 50,000 people were without electricity.

Both are tourism regions – Marche is described as “the new Tuscany” for its pretty villages and rolling countryside, while Emilia-romagna is known for historic cities like Bologna and Ravenna, famous for its Byzantine mosaics.

“Ravenna is unrecognisable for the damage it has suffered,” said Michele de Pascale, the mayor. Heavy rain was forecast, but Stefano Bonaccini, the governor of the region, said “the reality has exceeded the worst predictions”.

“We had issued a weather alert, but the amount of water that has fallen today has already reached, and in some cases exceeded, that which fell two weeks ago, which was already an unprecedented amount of rain.”

Around 20 rivers burst their banks and authorities warned of landslides. The mayor of Cesena warned locals to move to their highest floors and to avoid low-lying areas as the rain continued.

It is the second time this month that Emilia-romagna has been flooded, with climate experts blaming global warming. Saturated soil was unable to absorb the fresh downpours.

Nello Musumeci, the civil protection minister, said Italy’s climate was becoming increasingly “tropicalised”, with periods of intense rain followed by extreme summer heat.

He recalled a disaster last year on the island of Ischia near Naples, when a landslide killed 12 people. He said Italy needed to build more dams to catch rainwater but also improve the way urban areas absorb storm rainfall.

He said: “We need a different engineering approach. Nothing will be the same as before – tropicalisation has now come to Italy.

“We need to prepare a national plan to deal with heavy rains and long periods of drought, because we need to rethink how we manage the country.”