Lives wiped out in moments.
A river of mud and debris.
A sudden and violent wave from which she tried to save her son Silvia Mereu, a 40-year-old pharmacist.
The woman picked up 8-year-old Mattia in her arms, squeezing him to her chest after getting out of the car overwhelmed by the force of the water: she was rescued, about a kilometer away but there is no trace of the child at the moment and there is no rescuer who is not giving his soul to find him.
It is the symbolic story of the flood that hit the Marche, a drama that begins late Thursday evening in the area between Castelleone di Suasa in Arcevia.
Everything is consumed in a very short time.
"It was like the collapse of a dam," said the mayor of Barbara, a hamlet of Senigallia, Riccardo Pasqualini.
A thud and then the wave.
The baby's mother sensed that something dramatic was about to happen, she hugged Mattia and jumped out of the car but the violence of the water prevailed and the woman saw her son disappear, swallowed by the river.
Mattia's drama took place not far from the house where Erina lived, 75 years old, killed by the fury of the water.
When the wave arrived in the house, the husband, the child's partner and the granddaughter were present.
The three managed to escape to safety by going up to the second floor while the woman lingered in an attempt to close a window, a choice that was fatal.
"I heard Erina scream - says the daughter-in-law - With my father-in-law and my daughter, we said 'let's go right upstairs'. The grandfather went back to get Erina but she went to close the windows. 'Leave it alone, let's go up'. , I told her but at that moment the water had come up to here. It happened in a short time. Erina was coming back to me, the water that came in overwhelmed her. "
Also in Barbara a family unit was hit by the flood while she was trying to get to safety in two cars.
Brunella Chiù, 56, her daughter Luisa Bertolucci, 17, were overwhelmed by the water and are currently missing while the brother of the minor, Simone Bertolucci, 23, miraculously managed to save himself by remaining clinging to a large plant for about two hours, after having been carried away by the current for meters.
Between the two bodies still to be identified but already recovered by rescuers, one could be the 17-year-old.
"The water took them away from me in front of her eyes," the boy says desperately.
Among the broken lives there are also those of three men from Pianello di Ostra.
Andrea Tisba, 25, his father Giuseppe, 60 and the 52-year-old Diego Chiappetti, who died to "save" the cars that were in the garages.
A decision perhaps dictated by unconsciousness or simply by having underestimated the risk.
The three lived in the same building.
"Below - some witnesses say - they were surprised by water and mud".
Pianello's fourth victim, the eighty-year-old Ferdinando Olivi, would have died because he did not want to leave his home.
"My uncle - says his fifty year old nephew - died perhaps because he underestimated the danger: he did not want to leave his home and was trapped".
She trapped in the garage where she drowned
also Maria Luisa Sereni aged 80 in the hamlet of Trecastelli.
The body of another victim, 42-year-old Mohamed Enaji, who resided in Castelleone di Suasa, was transferred to the Ancona hospital.
He also drowned like Gino Petrolati, an 89 year old who was overwhelmed by the flood wave in Bettolelle, a fraction of Senigallia.
He was in the car and there was no escape for him.
If what remains to be identified is the 17-year-old's body, her mother Brunella and little Mattia are therefore missing.
In the next few hours they will continue their research and will not stop until they have found them, to return the bodies torn away from the mud to their families.