Floods from massive storm kill 10 in hilly central Italy
CANTIANO, Italy — Flash floods swept through several towns Friday in hilly central Italy after hours of exceptionally heavy rain, leaving 10 people dead and at least four missing. Dozens of survivors scrambled onto rooftops or up into trees to await rescue.
Floods invaded garages and basements and knocked down doors. In one town, the powerful rush of water pushed a car onto a second-story balcony, while elsewhere parked vehicles were crumpled on top of one another in the streets. Some farm fields near the sea were yards under water.
“It wasn’t a water bomb, it was a tsunami,” Riccardo Pasqualini, the mayor of Barbara, told Italian state radio about the sudden downpour Thursday evening that devastated his town in the Marche region near the Adriatic Sea.
He said the overnight flooding left the town’s 1,300 residents without drinking water. A mother and her young daughter were missing after trying to escape the floods, Pasqualini told the Italian news agency ANSA. Elsewhere in town, a boy was swept away from the arms of his mother, who was rescued.
Prime Minister Mario Draghi said at a Rome news conference that 10 people were dead and four were missing. He thanked rescuers “for their professionalism, dedication and courage.” Officials said some 50 people were treated at hospitals for injuries.
Draghi, who is serving in a caretaker role ahead of Italy’s Sept. 25 national election, planned to tour some devastated towns later Friday, and his government announced $5 million in aid to the region.
“It was an extreme event, more than an exceptional one,” climatologist Massimiliano Fazzini told Italian state TV. He said, based on his calculations, the amount of rain that fell, concentrated over four hours that included an especially heavy 15-minute period, was the most in hundreds of years.
In a space of a few hours, the region was deluged with the amount of rainfall it usually receives in six months, state TV said. A summer of virtually no rain meant hillsides were unusually hard and dry, so the water ran faster down the slopes, increasing its impact.
The fire department tweeted that dozens of people trapped in cars or who had climbed up to rooftops or trees to escape floodwaters had been rescued.
Police in Sassoferrato, unable to reach a man trapped in a car, extended a tree branch and pulled him to safety.