Milan flooded as deadly storm hits parts of Europe after dry summer

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

A wave of violent storms battered northern Italy on Thursday, raising fears for the life of a man who was swept away on a tractor in the Piedmont region.

Footage by state TV RAI showed the wheel of the vehicle still visible inside the Orco creek, near Turin, where the tractor overturned in muddy water. Searches for the missing man, 58, were still underway on Thursday afternoon, local rescuers said.

In Piedmont’s Val di Susa, two bridges collapsed, isolating a total of about 50 people in two villages after another river overflowed, blocking a provincial road.

Two other northern regions, Lombardy and Veneto, were hit by widespread flooding which caused damage and disruption in the city of Milan, where the local Seveso and Lambro rivers overflowed.

Firefighters in Milan said they attended dozens of call-outs to rescue people stuck in their cars in flooded road underpasses and to drain basements filled with water.

Some subway services had to be suspended due to the flooding. For the first time since it was founded in 1976, Milan’s Radio Popolare station went off air because its broadcast center was inundated with water.

Scientists warn that the climate crisis is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, droughts, downbursts and flooding, in Europe and around the globe. Storms are becoming heavier because warm air can hold more moisture.

Southern Italy has been recently suffering a severe drought, causing massive problems for local agriculture and tourism, especially in the islands of Sicily and Sardinia.

Meanwhile, in Spain a British woman has been found dead while emergency services search for a UK man after both were apparently swept away in a flash flood while hiking on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, Spanish police said.

Spain’s Civil Guard said that both people were on a trail that leads through a small canyon to the sea when the storm hit on Tuesday.

The police initially issued the erroneous information that they had found the body of the man and were searching for the woman. They later said it was the woman who had been found dead on Wednesday.

More inclement weather was forecast for the island and parts of Spain’s mainland.