At Least 10 Dead, 4 Missing After 'Tsunami'-Like Flash Floods in Italy: 'It Was Chaos'
Italian officials say at least 10 people have been killed after flash flooding devastated several towns in central Italy, per multiple reports.
Floodwaters ripped through several towns in the Marche region following torrential downpours late Thursday evening, according to the BBC.
The civil protection agency said about 15.75 inches of rain — one third of the average annual amount — fell in a matter of two to three hours, Reuters reported.
The rainwater caused rivers and streams to overflow, leaving many victims to seek shelter from the floodwaters by climbing up trees and onto rooftops, according to the outlets.
"It wasn't a water bomb, it was a tsunami," Riccardo Pasqualini, the mayor of Barbara, told Italian state radio, per the Associated Press.
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Premier Mario Draghi confirmed that 10 people were dead and four were missing at a news conference in Rome, according to the news agency,.
ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty
Citing Italian state TV, the AP reported that father and his adult son were killed when they had attempted to move their car from a garage that ultimately flooded. A man attempting to move his motorcycle also reportedly died, according to the news agency.
Among the missing are a mother and her young daughter, who were attempting to escape the floods, as well as a boy who was swept out of his mother's arms, according to the AP.
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ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Flooding in central Italy following torrential downpours
Mirco Santarelli, a resident of the town of Cantiano, told the AP that "it was panic" for those living in the valley area, which "became a bowl" of rainwater when the downpours passed through.
"You could see cars in the middle of the road that drifted away in the flood, debris everywhere, screams. It was chaos," Santarelli said.
ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Damage from the flooding in central Italy
In Sassoferrato, police used a long tree branch to pull a man trapped in a car to safety, according to the AP, which also reported that in the Apennine Mountains, seven people were rescued by helicopter.
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Climate change is the likely cause for such significant and unpredictable flooding, as noted by Paola Pino d'Astore, an expert at the Italian Society of Environmental Geology (SIGEA), according to Reuters.
"It is an irreversible phenomenon, a taste of what our future will be," d'Astore said.
Climatologist Massimiliano Fazzini told Italian state TV that the onslaught of rain the the most the region has seen in hundreds of years, per the AP. "It was an extreme event," said Fazzini.
