Body of girl found in Italy mudslide

MILAN – Search teams pulled the body of a young girl from her family home on Sunday as they dug through mud for a second day in the search for people still missing after an enormous landslide on the Italian island of Ischia.

The Naples prefect confirmed that the death toll in the tragedy had risen to two, following the recovery of the body of a 31-year-old woman from the island on Saturday.

At least 10 people remained missing in the port town of Casamicciola, feared buried under mud and debris.

“Mud and water tend to fill every space,” the spokesperson for Italian firefighters, Luca Cari, told RAI state TV. “Our teams are searching with hope, even if it is very difficult.”

“Our biggest hope is that people identified as missing have found refuge with relatives and friends and have not advised of their position,” he added.

The risks of landslides remained in the highest part of the town, near where heavy rainfall loosened a chunk of mountainside, requiring search teams to enter by foot, he said.

Small bulldozers focused on clearing roads overnight to allow rescue vehicles to pass, while dive teams were brought in to check cars that had been pushed into the sea.

The Naples prefect, Claudio Palomba, said on Sunday that 15 homes had been overwhelmed by the stream of mud. In addition to the dead and missing, four people were injured and more than 160 displaced.