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WEATHER REPORT
Black weekend as storms lash Italy, Switzerland, France
by Staff Writers
Geneva (AFP) Nov 16, 2014


Landslide kills two as death toll from Italy storm climbs to 11
Rome (AFP) Nov 16 - A landslide triggered by torrential rain engulfed a house on the shores of Italy's Lake Maggiore on Sunday, killing a pensioner and his granddaughter in what a neighbour described as a "horrific" tragedy.

The 70-year-old man died after the house was partially buried in a "sea of mud" unleashed after the hill behind the building gave way as a result of the unprecedented volumes of rainfall experienced across swaths of northern Italy in the last two weeks.

Rescue workers managed to drag the 16-year-old granddaughter from the rubble after more than four hours of digging but she died later in hospital.

Her parents and grandmother survived. The family's small, two-storey villa was the only property affected in Cerro, a hamlet on the outskirts of Laveno Mombello, a popular holiday spot.

A neighbour described how he had been awoken during the night by a huge bang "like fireworks".

"Then my house began to shake. Firefighters and civil protection officers were there very quickly and started digging with spades, even with their bare hands. The parents were helping them ... it was a horrific scene," the neighbour told Italian television.

The tragedy means a total of 11 people have died in accidents related to the freak weather conditions in just over a month.

That toll was expected to rise to 12 later Sunday as rescue workers continued to search for a man whose car was swept off the road by a torrent of water near Genoa, the main city on the Italian Riviera.

Genoa is particularly vulnerable to flooding because the foothills of the Alps climb steeply from immediately around the city. The city experienced 139 millimetres (five and a half inches) of rain in a matter of hours on Saturday. The Liguria region has had as much rain in the first 15 days of November as it normally gets in an entire year.

The rain relented on Sunday, leaving local authorities to begin a clean-up and repair operation for which the bill is expected to run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Landslide washes away Swiss house, police search for missing
Geneva (AFP) Nov 16 - Swiss police said Sunday four people had been rescued but others were believed to be missing after a landslide hit their small apartment building in the rain-drenched southern Ticino region.

Regional police said one of numerous landslides to hit the widely flooded area had swept away a three-story residential building in Davesco-Soragno, near Lugano, just before 2:30 am (0130 GMT).

Three people were rescued and taken to hospital with minor injuries, while a fourth had returned home after the fact and was not hurt, Ticino police said in a statement.

Police did not say how many more people were thought to have been in the building at the time, but Italian-language Swiss public broadcaster RSI reported four people were believed to be missing.

Geologists had deemed the area safe enough to begin searching for the missing, police said, adding that municipal and regional police were being helped in the mission by the fire brigade, civil protection units and a special dog unit.

After weeks of heavy rains, southern Ticino has been hit by severe flooding, which worsened after Lake Lugano burst its banks in several places and Lake Maggiore threatened to do the same.

On Sunday morning, the main road to Davesco was closed, as were a number of other roads around Lake Lugano, the ATS news agency reported.

Another landslide reportedly forced the evacuation of residents in Chiasso.

Switzerland's national meteorology institute told ATS Saturday that the region had been drenched with between 50 and 70 millimetres of rain in a 24-hour period.

The deluge had already in recent days closed a number of roads, flooded basements and forced evacuations of medical patients in the area.

At least four people were killed as landslides triggered by torrential rain slammed into buildings on either side of the Swiss-Italian border Sunday, a day after floods in southern France killed five people.

In the rain-drenched southern Ticino region of Switzerland, two people died and one was critically injured when a mudslide slammed into a small residential building.

On the other side of the border, a pensioner and his granddaughter were killed when another landslide engulfed a house on the Italian shores of Lake Maggiore. Three other family members survived.

Those landslides were the latest of many to recently have hit northern Italy and southern Switzerland amid incessant rainfall over recent weeks.

The Italian Liguria region has been doused with as much rain in the first 15 days of November as it normally gets in an entire year.

The tragedies also came a day after storms in southern France left five people dead, when their cars were swept away in flooding.

In one heartbreaking case, rescue workers managed late Friday to drag a father from his car, lodged on a bridge submerged by torrential rains, only to see the vehicle with his wife and two young sons still inside torn away by the raging water.

In Switzerland, the bodies of two local women, aged 34 and 38, were pulled Sunday from the rubble of the three-story apartment building in Davesco-Soragno, near Lugano, after being hit by the mudslide shortly before 2:30 am (0130 GMT), police said.

A 44-year-old Italian man, who was living with one of the women, had been dug out and taken to hospital in a critical condition, police told reporters.

Four others in the building at the time it collapsed had escaped with only minor injuries, while the final resident had not been home.

A wall above the building had crumbled under the rain and set off the landslide, police said.

That tragedy came 10 days after a young mother and her three-year-old daughter were killed when a landslide swept away their house in the same region.

After weeks of heavy rain, southern Ticino has been hit by severe flooding, which worsened when Lake Lugano burst its banks in several places and Lake Maggiore threatened to do the same.

- Digging with bare hands -

Just across Lake Maggiore, a 70-year-old man died Sunday after his house was partially buried in a "sea of mud" unleashed after the rain-doused hill behind the building gave way.

Rescue workers managed to drag his 16-year-old granddaughter from the rubble after more than four hours of digging but she died later in hospital.

Her parents and grandmother survived. The family's small, two-storey villa was the only property affected in Cerro, a hamlet on the outskirts of Laveno Mombello, a popular holiday spot.

A neighbour described how he had been awoken during the night by a huge bang "like fireworks", and seeing rescue workers and the girl's parents "digging with spades, even with their bare hands".

"It was a horrific scene," the neighbour told Italian television.

The tragedy means a total of 11 people have died in Italy in accidents related to the freak weather conditions in just over a month.

That toll was expected to rise to 12 later Sunday as rescue workers continued to search for a man whose car was swept off the road by a torrent of water near the Italian Riviera's main city, Genoa.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, speaking from the G20 summit in Australia, said the havoc wreaked by the heavy rain was the result of years of neglect of infrastructure.

"We have had 20 years of land management that needs to be scrapped," he said.

An estimated 70 coffins meanwhile were washed away after 50 metres of retaining wall in a cemetery in the Bolzaneto district of Genoa collapsed. Local residents reported skulls and other bones washing up on the banks of the Polcevera river.


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WEATHER REPORT
Sixth death feared as storms wreak road, rail havoc in Italy
Rome (AFP) Nov 15, 2014
Torrential rain closed road and rail links along the Italian Riviera on Saturday as storms that have killed five people this week returned to batter the north of the country. The unusually extreme weather was feared to have claimed another victim when a car was swept off the road by a torrent of water at Mignangeo near Genoa, the main city in a coastal area known for its usually benign year- ... read more


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