Record-breaking storm kills at least five in Italy
Record-breaking rain produced floods in a vast swath of Italy’s Tuscany region as Storm Ciarán pushed into the country overnight trapping residents in their homes, inundating hospitals and overturning cars.
At least five people were killed, bringing the storm’s death toll in western Europe to 12 on Friday.
Italian Civil Protection authorities said 200 millimeters (nearly 8 inches) of rain fell in a three-hour period, from the coastal city of Livorno to the inland valley of Mugello, and caused riverbanks to overflow. Video shows at least a dozen cars getting pushed down a flooded road.
Tuscany Gov. Eugenio Giani said five people died in the storm, which dumped an amount of rain fall not recorded in the last 100 years. “There was a wave of water bombs without precedence,” Giani told Italian news channel Sky TG24.
Climate scientists say human-induced climate change has led to heavier rainfall during storms like Ciarán, often resulting in more severe damage.
“If the conditions are different than 20 years ago, it is obvious to everyone,’’ Nello Musumeci, the government’s minister for civil protection told Sky TG24, noting that weather systems in Italy have become more tropical in nature.
The dead in Tuscany included an 85-year-old man found in the flooded ground floor of his home near the city of Prato, north of Florence, and an 84-woman who died while trying to push water out of her home in the same area, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
The other victims were a couple who had been missing near the town of Vinci and a person in Livorno province.
At least one person was missing Friday in Tuscany, along with an off-duty firefighter reported missing in the mountains of Veneto, north of Venice. Other regions were on high-alert and authorities warned that the storm was heading toward southern Italy.
