Floods and landslides cause damage and evacuations in Italy

A wave of bad weather, accompanied by severe storms, rain and hail, hit on Sunday (30) several mountainous areas in the Piedmont and Aosta Valley regions in northern Italy, causing widespread damage due to landslides, river overflows and floods.

Many people were evacuated from some areas, while others were trapped in shelters. The state of emergency also affected France, where three deaths were recorded, and Switzerland, where two victims have fallen so far.

According to local authorities, rescue teams evacuated dozens of citizens by helicopter from a mountain refuge in Piedmont, where floods as a result of heavy rain caused two streams in the area to overflow.

The damage to several mountainous areas of Piedmont prompted regional governor Alberto Serio to request a state of emergency.

He explained, “Our technicians are working and arriving in the affected areas to conduct a preliminary assessment of the damage and put the final touches on the first urgent interventions with the municipalities,” while pictures appeared of cars with broken windows due to heavy hailstones and some of the vehicles being transported. Water streams were detected.

In the municipality of Cogni, in the Aosta Valley, isolated because the only road connecting it has been closed since yesterday due to damage caused by bad weather, “the main emergency is the evacuation of people who have to go down into the valley.” .

“We are doing it with helicopter flights, we need to remove at least 300 people, but the numbers are not accurate at the moment,” Franco Allera, mayor of Cogni, told ANSA, explaining that a large part of them were residents and tourists and revealing that the village has no water.

According to him, “the canal has been washed away by the flood,” and the authorities are considering “carrying out a temporary repair between tonight and tomorrow so that we can fill the loading dock.”

Last night, after the situation worsened, the Gran Paradiso campsite had to be evacuated as well. “In our hotel, we received the largest possible number of displaced people, about 30 people,” explained Christine Cavanette to the Italian news agency ANSA, who with her family runs the Herpetit Hotel in Valenunte.

There was also severe damage on the Valnonte municipal road, where the electrical network and the water canal were damaged. .