Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

A 100ft section of road along a viaduct near the flooded Italian coastal city of Savona collapsed on Sunday PA Images

Motorway section collapses in Italy following heavy rainfall

Two people in France were also killed after historic levels of rain fell in the south of the country.

LAST UPDATE | 24 Nov 2019

A SECTION OF motorway has collapsed near the Italian city of Savona following a mudslide triggered by heavy rain in the region.

The viaduct serving the A6 motorway between Turin and France was washed away on Sunday, leaving a 30-metre gap in the road.

Although emergency services did not immediately find any victims at the site, sniffer dogs and helicopters were checking the area to make sure.

Images of the damage brought back memories of the 2018 collapse of the Morandi bridge at Genoa, only 50km away, which claimed 43 lives.

In the Piedmont region, a 52-year-old woman was missing after her car was swept away when a river burst its banks.

Local media reported that two other people in the car managed to get out of the car in time.

The worst hit region in Italy was Alessandria, south of Turin, where 200 people were evacuated and 600 left isolated. One woman was reported missing, Italian media said.

Another 500 people were evacuated further north in the Aosta Valley, where roads were closed because of the risk of avalanches.

Venice was once again hit by the floods that have paralysed the city this month, even if the levels were well off the historic peak reached on 12 November.

The waters that flooded the iconic St Mark’s Square in the city centre were at knee-height, and were beginning to recede by the afternoon.

Deaths in France

In France, two people were killed and at least one more is missing after historic rain levels drenched the south of the country, causing major floods that are only starting to recede.

The high floodwaters buried cars underwater, turned roads into rivers and even allowed kayakers the chance to paddle down a highway.

One body was found in the village of Le Muy, just north of France’s Mediterranean coast, close to where a rescue dinghy had capsized on Saturday evening.

Three members of the fire brigade and three civilians were on board, local authorities in the southern Var region said.

One of the civilians had been reported missing.

The second body, of a man in his 50s, was found in the village of Cabasse in a car, said the local authorities, without giving further details.

Meanwhile, another man in his 70s was still missing in the village of Saint-Antonin-du-Var after going out during the night amid heavy rain. Searches are continuing.

The Alpes-Maritimes and Var regions have been hit by torrential rainstorms that also caused huge waves in seaside areas since Friday.

A 39-year-old woman was badly injured on Saturday and hospitalised after being swept away by a wave, the fire service said.

The town of Roquebrune-sur-Argens in the Var region was particularly badly affected and only accessible by boat or helicopter, local authorities said.

Some 4,500 households have been left without electricity throughout the Var and Alpes-Maritimes regions.

A senior official for the Var region, Jean-Luc Videlaine, told AFP that the rains had been of “historic” intensity, adding that the damage will be “considerable”.

He said that water levels were now going down but added that the situation was “far from returning to normal”.

In some areas of the Var region, the equivalent of two or three months of rain fell in just 24 or 48 hours.

- © AFP 2019

Author
View 21 comments
Close
21 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Tim McCormack29
    Favourite Tim McCormack29
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 7:13 PM

    They don’t build things there like the Romans did to last for millenia.

    111
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Pat Lonergan
    Favourite Pat Lonergan
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 9:02 PM

    @Tim McCormack29: Not when the Mafia is building it.

    59
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mike McGann
    Favourite Mike McGann
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 10:22 PM

    @Pat Lonergan: smug and ignorant comment, some knowledge of topography rather than Netflix would be a plus.

    22
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Eugene Conroy
    Favourite Eugene Conroy
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 7:03 PM

    Never happened before……must be climate change,

    45
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute SF Knee Knockers
    Favourite SF Knee Knockers
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 8:30 PM

    @Eugene Conroy: comment deleted for stating climate has been changing since year dot !!!

    25
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paul Furey
    Favourite Paul Furey
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 11:08 PM

    @SF Knee Knockers: two words! “Happening faster”. Try and keep up.

    9
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute SF Knee Knockers
    Favourite SF Knee Knockers
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 11:34 PM

    @Paul Furey: faster than what…earth billions of years old..human records only for a few 100 years…climate has been changing forever.. faster slower faster.

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute .
    Favourite .
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 7:33 PM

    Ligurian infrastructure is in such a state. No area of europe has suffered so much with bridge collapses despite the fact that they pay the highest road tolls in Europe, and most of the motorways there consist vastly of viaducts like this, which were said to have been audited after the last collapse.

    32
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Conoroconnor
    Favourite Conoroconnor
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 7:41 PM

    @.: it’s probably the most corrupt country in the Europe. Millions of EU grant money has just disappeared into black holes and is untraceable.

    56
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Robbie Clancy
    Favourite Robbie Clancy
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 7:58 PM

    @Conoroconnor: I read about how mafia ran most of the construction in certain parts of Italy. Never had any competition so they where awarded all the civil contracts.

    38
    See 6 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Attilio
    Favourite Attilio
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 8:09 PM

    @Conoroconnor: as an Italian myself I am afraid I have to agree. Left Italy decades ago but very little seems to have changed and corruption seems still incredibly widespread

    39
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Shane McGrath
    Favourite Shane McGrath
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 8:41 PM

    @Robbie Clancy: No5nonly that but they provided sub-standard concrete and Steele to state projects and in turn bribed construction standards authority overseers to turn a blind eye. Modern Italy is crumbling. The motorways are the worst in western Europe.

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Conoroconnor
    Favourite Conoroconnor
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 10:07 PM

    @Attilio: the thing is, I love italy. A truly beautiful country with some of the most unspoiled countryside, incredible old walled towns, lovely people and the best food in the world. Such a shame.

    17
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mike McGann
    Favourite Mike McGann
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 10:25 PM

    @Conoroconnor: well then jump in your Ferrari and enjoy some of the best roads, best scenery, best food by a mile, wine and best people. I’m not Italian but I have family there and I dislike it being disparaged despite it being 10 times the country ours is.

    8
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Conoroconnor
    Favourite Conoroconnor
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 11:02 PM

    @Mike McGann: most of my italian friends would agree with my assessment of the corruption. Like I said, it’s a pity because it is otherwise such a great country & great people I’m not saying we are that much better, by the way. but I spoke with people in Apulia who were in awe of how Ireland has used it’s a EU Grant’s for redevelopment over the years, as over there the money just disappears with little or no obvious development having taken place. The mechanisms of the Italian state have also taken bureaucracy to a whole new level. These are the faults with the place, but I really love Italy and its people. In many ways, public transport for example, ithey way ahead of us. By the way, I go cycling there once a year and their smaller roads are in as bad of condition as ours, if not worse.

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mjhint
    Favourite Mjhint
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 11:26 PM

    @Conoroconnor: Great country. I’m regularly there. Was only there last week. I’m I correct in saying this road from Genoa to Ventimiglia was constructed not long after WW2 originally. Are some of these structures from the 50s & 60s?

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paraic
    Favourite Paraic
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 9:14 PM

    For those putting this down to poor Italian infrastructure, this is also happening in the French Alps where least 2 people have died. There is an unprecedented level of flooding happening. Put this together with Venice recently and parts of England that experienced an absolute monumental deluge, and you have a pattern of highly unusual weather events that are fully predicted by climate change.
    https://amp.breakingnews.ie/world/two-dead-as-floods-hit-france-and-italy-966261.html

    20
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Tommy Roche
    Favourite Tommy Roche
    Report
    Nov 25th 2019, 2:15 AM

    @Paraic: You must be racking up the brownie points with Cookie and Dana at Skeppie Science.

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paraic
    Favourite Paraic
    Report
    Nov 25th 2019, 7:50 AM

    @Tommy Roche: How many troll accounts is it now that you’ve racked up?

    6
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute ed w
    Favourite ed w
    Report
    Nov 24th 2019, 10:36 PM

    better get used to it whatever the reason the climate is a changing.

    14
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute HONEY BADGER180
    Favourite HONEY BADGER180
    Report
    Nov 25th 2019, 7:37 AM

    Made with mafia Concrete!!!!!!

    3
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel

 
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds