CANTIANO, Italy, Sept 16 (Reuters) – At least nine people died in torrential rain and flooding overnight in the Marche region of central Italy, authorities said on Friday, as rescuers continued to search for four more missing. . In Cantiano, a village near the neighboring Umbria region, residents cleared mud from the streets, according to Reuters video, after torrents swept through several towns leaving a trail of trapped and damaged cars. “My fruit shop has been knocked over,” local resident Luciana Agostinelli told Reuters. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up About 400 millimeters (15.75 inches) of rain fell in two to three hours, according to the civil protection service, a third of the amount usually received in a year. “It was like an earthquake,” Ludovico Caverni, mayor of Serra Sant’Abbondio, another village hit by the floods, told RAI state radio. The head of the national civil protection service, Fabrizio Curcio, met with local authorities in the Marche capital, Ancona, to assess the damage, while party leaders contesting Italy’s Sept. 25 election expressed their solidarity. People work to clear their street after heavy rain and deadly floods hit central Italy’s Marche region, in Cantiano, Italy, September 16, 2022. REUTERS/Yara Nardi read more Footage released by fire services showed rescuers on rafts trying to evacuate people in the seaside town of Senigallia, while others tried to clear an underpass of debris. Paola Pino d’Astore, an expert at the Italian Society of Environmental Geology (SIGEA), told Reuters that the floods were due to climate change and were not easy to predict. “It’s an irreversible phenomenon, a glimpse of what our future will be,” he said. About 300 firefighters are currently working in the area and have rescued dozens of people who had climbed onto roofs and trees overnight to escape the floods, the fire department said. Stefano Aguzzi, head of civil protection for the Marche regional government, said the rainfall was much heavier than predicted. “We were given a normal rain warning, but nobody expected anything like this,” he told reporters. Enrico Letta, leader of the center-left Democratic Party, said he would suspend Marche’s campaign “as a sign of mourning” and allow his local activists to join efforts to help flood-hit communities. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Additional reporting by Federico Maccioni, Alvise Armellini, Gavin Jones and Angelo Amante Editing by Hugh Lawson and Paul Simao Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
