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The task of searching for victims of the French and Italian floods in Alpine villages and on nearby coasts has become more gruesome, as authorities have said that corpses from cemeteries have been washed down the mountain by violent rains.
A spokeswoman for France’s Alps-Maritime regional administration, severely affected by the storm along with the Italian regions of Liguria and Piedmont, said it was unclear where the bodies came from, but bodies unearthed from cemeteries had turned up in the Italian side.
The bodies in the cemetery were in such an advanced state of decomposition that they were clearly distinguishable from recent storm victims, the spokeswoman told the Associated Press. Local authorities said cemeteries in the French cities of Saint-Martin-de-Vésubie and Tende were partially washed away by the floods. Tende’s mayor, Jean-Pierre Vassallo, told Le Parisien newspaper that the town’s cemetery “was cut in two” and the bodies were unearthed.
Local Italian authorities could not be immediately reached for comment.
A total of 12 deaths have been reported since Friday, four on the French side and eight on the Italian. More than 600 rescuers and others are searching for some 20 people still missing.
Police go door-to-door to check on missing people in villages where the storm cut off roads, electricity, communications and water supplies.
Seven Canadian black wolves also went missing after a wildlife park north of the city of Nice on the French Riviera was left in rubble after flooding.
The French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) has warned that wolves can starve if they are not found soon, as they are used to being fed. Two agents and a vet are searching the area by helicopter after sightings of some of the wolves were reported near the park.
“The priority is to find them and capture them with the help of a dart gun,” OFB regional director Eric Hansen told Agence France-Presse.
Canadian black wolves are a large subspecies of gray wolves, weighing around 80 kg.
The body of one of the park’s three polar wolves was found after flooding swept through its enclosure. The other two “are probably dead as well,” Hansen said.
A third enclosure with three Central European gray wolves was saved and would become the temporary home for Canadian wolves once they were found, he said.
