More than 1,200 people have been evacuated from their homes in Tuscany after heavy rain and high winds caused widespread flooding and power outages in the central Italian region, according to the dpa news agency.
Eugenio Giani, the president of Tuscany, said more than 16,000 households were without electricity and many roads were closed due to landslides and fallen trees. He also said that a library in Quarrata had suffered heavy damage from the floodwaters.
Giani praised the efforts of the emergency services and volunteers who were working to assist the affected communities. He said he was in contact with the National Department of Civil Protection and other regions of Italy that were also hit by the storms.
“I also follow live the work of the Medio Valdarno Reclamation Consortium on the rivers of the areas of the Florence-Prato-Pistoia plain, Val di Sieve, Mugello, Val di Bisenzio, Ombrone Pistoiese, the most affected by the critical issues,” he wrote in a social media post on platform X.
The death toll from the storms that have battered Tuscany since Thursday evening has risen to seven, according to dpa media reports. The victims include a 70-year-old man who drowned in his car, a 53-year-old woman who was swept away by a torrent, and a 36-year-old man who died after his car was hit by a landslide.
The worst-hit areas are the provinces of Prato and Pistoia, where the Bisenzio River and smaller streams have overflowed and inundated villages. Cleanup work has begun in some areas where the water level has started to recede.
“Our Tuscany may be wounded, but we have already started to rebuild. Forza!” Giani wrote in a post on Facebook.
Tuscany is reportedly facing the most significant amount of rainfall in such a short period in over a hundred years. Concurrently, the Italian government has allocated five million euros for immediate repairs in Tuscany, as stated in the Florentine media report.
The bad weather also affected other regions of northern and central Italy, with high waves and storm surges reported along the Italian Riviera in Liguria and the Adriatic coast. In Venice, the MOSE floodgates were activated to protect the city centre from flooding.
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