Northern Italy continued to battle
against very bad weather on Monday, with many regions affected
by torrential rainfall, highly charged thunder storms, strong
winds and landslides, among other extreme events.
Central Trieste was flooded after a 'water bomb' or torrential
downpour with gales hit the port city in the northeastern Friuli
Venezia Giulia region.
Many residents and tourists took refuge in the historic bars in
and around the iconic seafront Piazza Unità d'Italia as winds
blew away cafe tables and other outside furniture.
The violent thunderstorm dumped a huge amount of water on the
city centre in the space of 20 minutes, after which skies
cleared.
High water was also reported in the Veneto city of Venice,
further south.
On the other side of the country in the northwestern region of
Piemonte, firefighters and Carabinieri police had to intervene
with a snowplough to free several cars that had been trapped in
heavy snow in Colle dell'Agnello near Cuneo on the border
between Italy and France.
No one was injured and the vehicles were subsequently escorted
down the valley, while the road remained closed.
The situation was also critical in Lombardy in the north, where
a dozen people were evacuated as a precautionary measure in the
small village of Santa Lucia in Valdisotto near Sondrio due to
the partial flooding of the Frodolfo river at its confluence
with the Adda river on Monday morning.
The extreme weather also caused major disruptions to national
transport connections, with Italian road and motorway operator
Anas announcing the closure of three major roads in the northern
regions of Lombardy and Piemonte.
Further, the Italian-French Intergovernmental Commission for the
Turin-Lyon railway line said that international railway
connections between Italy and France through the Frejus tunnel
had been suspended "for an indefinite period" following a
landslide in France's Alpine Savoy region bordering Piemonte on
Sunday.
The Commission said French railway operator Sncf has blocked all
trains in their stations of origin and that it could take days
and maybe a week for services to be restored.
On Sunday the northwestern coastal region of Liguria was hit by
violent storms, with 80 mm of rain falling in less than an hour
in Genoa alone.
The rainfall caused widespread flooding of roads, leading to
the closure of the city subway and underpasses.
However, so far there have been no reports of injuries.
Not far away across the border in Piemonte, lightning knocked
out rail systems in Novi Ligure, causing disruptions on the
Turin-Genoa line.
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