Italy: Death toll rises as floods rip mother's child out of her arms

Created: 09/18/2022, 04:49 am

By: Anna Lorenz

A severe storm has swept across Italy.

Heavy rain has claimed the lives of at least eleven people and other residents are missing.

The news ticker.

• After storms in Italy: search for

  missing

  people

  continues

• "Apocalyptic conditions": After the

  storm catastrophe

  , the Italian communities take

  stock

• After floods in Italy:

  the death toll

  rises to ten – more people are

  missing

• The

  Italian coastal region

  around Ancona was hit by

  heavy rains

  .

  Floods

  and

  flash floods

  were the result.

  A mother had her child snatched from her arms.

  The overview.

• This news ticker is continuously updated.

Update from September 17, 8:30 p.m .:

After the severe storms in central Italy, the death toll has risen to at least eleven.

The police in the Adriatic city of Ancona said on Saturday, September 17, that they were still looking for two missing people.

According to local media reports, it is an eight-year-old child and a 56-year-old woman.

After storms in Italy: search for missing people continues

Update from September 17, 11:30 a.m .:

In the Italian region of Marche, the search for three more missing people from the storm and flood disaster has been continued.

The responders, including 400 firefighters, were looking for two adults - a man and a woman - and an eight-year-old boy on the morning of Saturday, September 17.

He had been ripped out of his mother's arms by the floodwaters during the storm on Thursday evening, September 15, just as they were both getting out of their car.

"There was this superhuman strength," the woman told

newspaper .

Her son held on to a tree trunk.

“He wanted to stay afloat.

A few seconds, then he disappeared into the darkness.”

The storm also left its mark in Senigallia in the Marche region.

The fire department is still looking for three missing persons.

© Gabriele Moroni/dpa

Due to extreme downpours, rivers burst their banks in the areas near the Adriatic coast, masses of water and mud pushed through the villages, some of them meters high.

Ten people died and at least 50 were injured.

Floods in Italy: Mayor speaks of "apocalyptic conditions"

Update from September 16, 6:09 p.m.:

“The amounts of water were overwhelming, it was much worse than predicted,” said Italy’s civil defense chief Fabio Curcio, who had rushed to the accident area.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi also announced a visit to the affected areas.

Regional President Francesco Acquaroli meanwhile asked the government in Rome to declare a state of emergency.  

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Consequences of the water masses due to the heavy rainfall on the Adriatic coast: Cars are stuck in mud and rubble after flash floods.

© picture alliance/dpa/LaPresse/AP |

Gabrielle Moroni

"We have apocalyptic conditions here," said Alessandro Piccini, mayor of Cantiano, in a radio interview.

The whole force of nature can be guessed at from mobile phone videos.

Cars and trucks were swept away, entire squares and shops disappeared under the sometimes meter-high masses of water.

Since the night of Friday, September 16, 700 emergency services, including 180 firefighters and civil defense helpers, have been trying to get people to safety and find missing people in the affected areas.

Many, especially older people, were rescued with inflatable boats.

According to media reports, there are at least 50 injured.

Some bridges were destroyed and roads torn away.

"The historic center of our city no longer exists," Cantiano deputy mayor Natalia Grilli told

newspaper .

Since Thursday, September 15, the place has been without gas, electricity and tap water.

A woman walks on a mud-flooded street.

Flooding caused by heavy rains caused a lot of damage early Friday, September 16, 2022.

© picture alliance/dpa/LaPresse/AP |

Gabrielle Moroni

Riccardo Pasqualini, mayor of Barbara, which was also badly hit, also reported on Facebook about recurring power, telephone and mobile network failures.

In the coastal town of Senigallia, which was also hit hard, schools, kindergartens, sports facilities and other public facilities will remain closed until at least Saturday September 17th.

After extreme rainfall in Italy: the death toll rises to ten – more people are missing

Update from September 16, 1:30 p.m .:

As the prefecture of the city of Ancona on the Adriatic coast has now announced, at least ten people have died in the devastating rains and floods in the Italian region of Marche.

Four people are still missing.

Among them are a woman and her 17-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old boy in the village of Barbara, said Mayor Riccardo Pasqualini, according to Ansa.

Italy: Rain, floods, flash floods - catastrophic conditions on the Adriatic coast

First report from September 16, 11.49 a.m .:

Rome – A lot of rain.

Overflowing rivers, volumes of water make their way through the streets.

Landslides bring mud and debris with them, cars are simply washed away, houses are flooded and the sky keeps falling: the unrelenting wet.

Around 420 liters of rain per square meter, according to Stefano Stefoni, director of civil protection and security in the Italian Marche, this amount is “half of what [it] rains in the region in one year”.

On Thursday, September 15, however, this gigantic flood came down there within “two or three hours”.

The consequences: catastrophic.

Rain in Italy: Storms and floods hit the Italian region of Marche - with fatal consequences

Firefighters help an elderly woman.

Heavy rain and flooding on Italy's Adriatic coast have already claimed seven lives and more are missing.

© picture alliance/dpa/Vigili del Fuoco |

-

The extent of the "very serious meteorological crisis", as the President of the Marche Region, Francesco Acquaroli, put it, is both frightening and worrying.

Experts fear that climate change will often bring extreme weather conditions with it in the future.

At least eight people have died in the heavy rains and floods on Italy's Adriatic coast.

In the port community of Senigallia north of Ancona, the body of a man who was run over by the water in his car was found.

According to the authorities, four people are also missing in the Marche region - including, as Riccardo Pasqualini, the mayor of the town of Barbara near Ancona, said, a mother and her 17-year-old daughter.

An eight-year-old boy who, according to the

news agency , was literally torn from his mother's arms by the masses of water when she left the car, has not yet been found.

Furthermore, there are "still isolated people that we are rescuing," Stefoni announced.

"The municipality of Cantiano (PU) is isolated, as are some retirement homes".

Firefighters maneuver a hose into an underground car park that is blocked by a parked car.

© picture alliance/dpa/Vigili del Fuoco |

-

Civil protection had already warned Italian citizens on Thursday, September 15, that they should go to higher areas or at least move to the upper floors.

In the meantime, the flooding river Misa in Senigallia is retreating, as Mayor Massimo Olivetti has now announced on social media.

"Various parts of the city are still flooded, but the water no longer flows from Ponte Garibaldi and Ponte degli Angeli." However, the flooding in the Cesano area would continue.

Overall, various roads in the Marche are closed or simply impassable.

Olivetti asked citizens to stay at home if possible and to “leave the streets free” so as not to make it difficult for helpers to get there.

Flood in Italy: Those responsible are deeply affected – "But the region is strong"

For Italy, which was hit by an immense drought as a result of the heat in the summer of 2022, the flood is another stroke of fate.

Back then there was no water – now the weather brings too much of it.

Last week, a tornado over Lake Garda caused unrest in the country.

The Italian state government has now contacted Acquaroli.

"I've just had calls from Head of State Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Mario Draghi," he wrote on Facebook on Friday, September 16.

Both expressed their sympathy and solidarity with the brands.

Firefighters push a rubber dinghy through the flooded street to rescue people from their homes.

© picture alliance/dpa/Vigili del Fuoco |

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"President Mattarella [...] thanked all those who work tirelessly for the aid," said Acquaroli, "Prime Minister Mario Draghi [...] assured me of support for all necessary needs." His own thoughts, according to the President of the Region, "are for the missing persons and their families, to whom I express my condolences and my solidarity".

The pain about what happened is deep, but the region is "strong and will know how to react".

(askl)