Northern-central Italy devastated by massive flooding, 5 dead, 10 missing

Violent storms claimed five lives in central-northern Italy as heavy rains flooded rivers that inundated streets and destroyed bridges, local media said on Wednesday. Three people died in the town of Borghetto Vara in northern Liguria region when a house was swept away in mudslides and torrential downpours, according to the Italian civil protection agency. A 40-year-old volunteer who was opening manholes on Tuesday was missing on Wednesday in the same area, while in central Tuscany region a river flooded the medieval centre of the fortress town Aulla, killing two more citizens. Some other 10 people are still missing. Roads and train tracks were closed, making rescues more complicated, and a major highway in northern Italy has been blocked in both directions since Tuesday when a mudslide trapped a truck driver who was finally rescued. "We spent the whole night in the bus, witnessing scenes from the Apocalypse, with cars flipped upside down, one on the other," the coach of a local soccer team which was blocked en route to a game was quoted as saying by local media. Fire brigades as well as police divers had to be called in to save people from flooding and search for the missing ones, while hundreds of families were forced to evacuate from their houses. Officials also said that helicopters were being brought in to help with the rescues and an air bridge would be set up to send in supplies with the army put on standby. "Everything is flooded. People are entering their homes through balconies. We need help quickly," said the mayor of Monterosso, a town of popular "Cinque Terre" (The Five Lands) locality in Liguria region. Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said in an interview with a local television on Wednesday "These are very painful tributes that we unfortunately pay to climate change." Tuscany region declared the state of emergency, but some experts throughout the country complained that there is a general problem in Italy of failure at preventing natural calamities. The heavy storms that hit Liguria and Tuscany, for example, had been widely expected so that something more could have be done to avoid major damage, head of Italian civil protection agency, Franco Gabrielli, was quoted as saying by ANSA news agency. "The forecast was accurate and timely, and thus the warning system worked. We must work to better inform citizens, who must be aware of the situation and risks. All citizens, however, must do their part in avoiding any risky behavior," he stressed. Heavy rainfall is expected to hit southern regions in the next days as the storm front moved to Italy's capital Rome on Wednesday, where officials said the situation was under control. In the past week, heavy storms have claimed two other lives in southern Italy, where a woman died as her car was swept away in a mudslide, and in the capital where rainstorms flooded an underground apartment drowning a young man.