Heavy rains and floods have hit central Italy hard. At least seven people were killed and three are still missing.
Rescue workers evacuate people in the severely affected village of Senigallia.
(agencies)/tsf.
At least seven people died in heavy rain and flooding in the area around the Italian Adriatic city of Ancona on Thursday. Three people are still missing, including a child. According to the authorities, about 400 millimeters of rain fell within two to three hours. That’s about half the amount it rains in an entire year.
The authorities spoke of an actual “water bomb”. The water masses would have flooded the streets of several cities in the provinces of Ancona and Pesaro-Urbino.
In no time the masses of water flooded the streets of Senigallia.
The fire brigade, police and civil defense were sometimes on boats to rescue and evacuate people. They worked for hours to clear the streets of mud and landslide material, as Luigi D’Angelo, spokesman for the national civil protection agency, said on Friday. Such heavy rains were not predicted. Individual communities such as Cantiano are isolated from the environment. Electricity is not stable in the affected area, and phone lines are not working everywhere either.
The President of the Marche Region, Francesco Acquaroli, wrote on Twitter that the “very serious meteorological crisis” in the region is a cause for extreme concern.
So seguendo dalla sala della Protezione Civile Regionale, insieme a tutte le altre Autorità, l’evolversi della gravissima crisi meteorologica che si è abbattuta sulla nostra regione e l’azione di soccorso di tutti gli operatori. Sono momenti di extreme appraisal.
— Francesco Acquaroli (@AcquaroliF) September 15, 2022
On Thursday, civil protection called on residents of the coastal town of Senigallia north of Ancona to seek out higher-lying areas in view of the flooding.