Floodwaters triggered by heavy rainfall have swept through several towns in a hilly region of central-east Italy, leaving 10 people dead and several missing, according to state radio.
Dozens of survivors scrambled onto rooftops or up trees to await rescue early on Friday.
“It wasn’t a water bomb, it was a tsunami,” Barbara Mayor Riccardo Pasqualini told Italian state radio, describing the sudden downpour on Thursday evening that devastated his town in the Marche region near the Adriatic Sea.
While firefighters said seven deaths were confirmed and three people were missing, RAI state radio said there were 10 confirmed deaths.
Two children, including one swept out of his mother’s arms by rushing waters in Barbara were among four people still unaccounted for by late Friday morning.
A mother and her daughter, aged about 8, who were trying to escape the floodwaters were missing in Barbara, the mayor told the Italian news agency ANSA.
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