Rome (September 12, 2017): At least six people have been killed and two others are still missing after heavy rainstorms triggered severe flooding in Italy’s Tuscany region over the weekend.
Whereas four members of a family trapped in their basement apartment died in the city of Livorno, which has taken on the brunt of the flooding.
Aerial photographs shared by Italy’s fire and rescue services showed widespread flooding in the region, where streets were turned to rivers and buildings submerged. Tommaso Tafi, spokesman for the mayor of Livorno said that Tuscany has been on an orange alert since Sunday night.
“In this situation and under this alert, nobody leaves their homes,” Tafi said. “The previous week (the area of) Liguria was on red alert and it did not even rain. That is why we did not call people’s homes to alert them. We notified people through the local television and local papers.”
Livorno Mayor Filippo Nogarin said that the government had underestimated the danger of the storm.
“We didn’t expect this because the alert was orange. Then we woke up to this,” Nogarin said, adding that the death toll “may still rise.”
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