ROME | Twenty-one of the 22 people declared missing by Italy after the bad weather sweeping the north-west of the country were found near the Tende pass in France and were being evacuated by helicopter, announced on Saturday evening. Italian Civil Protection to AFP.
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“[Vingt et un] missing were found in Vievola and began to be evacuated by helicopter to Limone ”in Italy, Mara Anastasia, spokesperson for Civil Protection, told AFP. Among them are two Germans and their Italian grandchildren, she added.
The toll of bad weather in Italy is now one missing, a man whose car fell into a stream, and two dead: a 53-year-old firefighter who died in intervention in the Aosta Valley, and a man from 36-year-old whose vehicle had fallen into the Sesia River in Piedmont.
The authorities had announced earlier in the day that 22 people were missing in the border area, at the passage of the Tende pass blocked by scree, floods and landslides.
In France, a spokesperson for relief confirmed that “castaways on the road” had been stranded on Friday between two landslides near the Tende tunnel. They were able to be sheltered in an old station in Vievola. “The helicopter device has now made it possible to evacuate a large part of these people, around forty, from this very landlocked part,” he said.
According to the president of the Piedmont region, bordering the south-east of France, these bad weather have been the most serious since 1994, when the flood of the Po and Tarano had killed 70 people.
From Ventimiglia to Biella, the heavy rains that fell from Friday afternoon on this hilly region caused flooding, landslides, landslides and caused significant material damage, damaging buildings and infrastructure, especially bridges. .
Many roads were also cut, isolating the villages, noted an AFP journalist trying to get to Biella, an hour and a half drive west of Milan.
Disaster in Ventimiglia
In Piedmont, many villages, with streets and houses devastated by water, are cut off from the world, without water or electricity, according to the authorities of the region, who evoke an “extremely critical” situation.
The most affected areas are in the basins of the Toce, Tanaro, Biellese and Sesia rivers.
In Ventimiglia, where the Roya left his bed, the mayor Gaetano Scullino estimated “that a catastrophe of this kind has not happened since 1958”.
The floods devastated the western part of the city, causing millions of euros in damage, according to local authorities. “We have lost all the machines and orders for pasta, from Italy and France. When I entered, the cold rooms were floating, ”lamented Ramon Bruno, owner of a pasta factory, to the Ansa agency.
“The violence of the water was such that it raised the floor”, testified another trader, owner of the restaurant Da Giò, Giorgio Muratore.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said he was in constant contact with the head of Civil Protection, Angelo Borrelli.
“We ensure constant surveillance, in full coordination with the territories, with particular attention to the Valle d’Aosta, Piedmont and Liguria”, he said on his Facebook page.
In Liguria, the rains and the wind also hit the olive growing sector. Farmers report significant damage to olive groves as harvests approach.