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Sunday 4 October 2020
Entire houses are washed away by bodies of water, bridges destroyed, villages cut off from the outside world. The worst storms in decades hit northern Italy and southeastern France. The number of deaths cannot yet be predicted.
Flood storms have caused chaos in southeastern France and northern Italy. There were several deaths. Also in Austria and Switzerland, the wind and rain caused great damage over the weekend, a four-year-old girl died.
According to media reports, at least six people are believed to have died in Italy. In places on the Mediterranean coast of Liguria, such as San Remo, four bodies were later discovered. They could have been washed into the sea by rivers, even a victim could come from France. In the mountainous interior of the French vacation metropolis Nice, at least eight people were missing, including two firefighters. There was no news of others. There is great concern about the final death toll, as Prime Minister Jean Castex said during a visit to the crisis region.
The Foreign Ministry in Berlin said that, based on available information, there is currently no evidence that Germans are among the missing or victims of the storm. Therefore, the German embassy in Rome and the general consulate in Marseille contacted the local authorities.
In Austria, rescue workers had to carry out numerous missions due to downed trees and minor flooding. A four-year-old girl was killed by a tree while walking. In Switzerland, the low brought huge amounts of rain on Saturday, the A2 motorway closed for hours due to flooding. Cleanup work is still ongoing in the French department of the Alpes-Maritimes and in northern Italy. Around 1,000 firefighters and the army were deployed in France.
“Weather bomb”
In Italy’s Piedmont region, roads and bridges were damaged and cities were flooded, for example in Limone Piemonte in the province of Cuneo. The mayor spoke of a “catastrophic situation.” The Piedmont and Liguria regions complained of damages worth millions. In the mountains north of Nice, the villages were temporarily inaccessible. The telephone network had collapsed. Thousands of homes were without power. Rescuers brought food and water to the region. Rémi Recio, head of the nearest staff of the local prefecture, spoke of a “weather bomb” that had fallen on the department. From the helicopter he saw scenes similar to the war. “It gives the impression that the area has been bombed.”
The houses were washed away by the masses of water. There is still great uncertainty: “Currently we do not know if the houses were occupied or vacation homes,” Recio told the Franceinfo news channel. He said of the eight missing people that there were testimonies that they had disappeared in the floods. In Italy, a 53-year-old volunteer firefighter from the Arnad municipality in the Aosta Valley died after being struck by a fallen tree during a rescue operation. A 36-year-old driver from Vercelli was washed away by river water on a broken road. His younger brother, however, managed to get out of the car and survived. Vercelli is located between Turin and Milan.
Sometimes it rained more Friday through Saturday in northwestern Italy than it had for about 60 years. The power was cut for thousands of people. Authorities continue to warn of flood risks. This also applies to the River Po, which runs through Italy from the west and empties into the Adriatic Sea.
21 people who were considered missing in Piedmont were finally found across the border in the interior of Nice. A group of German hikers with five men and a woman initially thought to be missing in Piedmont’s Valle Gesso valley were discovered in a cabin and taken to safety. In Venice, the new Mose flood protection system was put into operation for the first time in a situation of real danger on Saturday. The floodgates of the floodgates were erected in the openings of the lagoon. On Sunday it was reported in reports that Moses had had an effect: Despite the rising water level, St. Mark’s Square in the center remained dry.
Prime Minister Castex and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin rushed to the Alpes-Maritimes department on Saturday. Castex assured the population of its support. This Wednesday, the cabinet will declare disaster for the affected communities. Among other things, this facilitates compensation. The south of France has suffered severe storms for years.
