Vicious storms that lashed through northeast Italy, triggering massive landslides and killing two people, have caused between €500-million and €1-billion in damages, authorities said on Sunday.
About 200 volunteers from Italy’s civil protection unit were still battling the effects of Friday’s storms, despite the risk that further deluges of rain in the northeast could force more evacuations.
Mud-coloured torrents of water continued to rush down the valleys in the Udine province, creating the risk of a repeat of Friday’s dramatic landslides.
In all, 400 houses have been damaged in the region from the storms, while 350 people have been evacuated from their homes.
Television pictures showed houses perched precariously above gorges carved out by the torrents, which had created hollows several metres lower than the buildings’ own foundations.
The authorities in the German-speaking region, which lies near the Austrian border, have released €200 000 in emergency aid for the victims.
After months of drought and heat waves, about 40cm of rain fell in only six hours on Friday, causing mudslides in seven villages and heaping them with debris.
One of the dead victims drowned after being caught up in a mudslide near the village of Malborghetto Valbruna, while the other died when a small hotel collapsed on a mountainside. — Sapa-AFP