Central Trieste was flooded after a ‘water bomb’ or torrential downpour with gales hit the port city in the northeastern Friuli Venezia Giulia region.
Many residents and tourists took refuge in the historic bars in and around the iconic seafront Piazza Unità d’Italia as winds blew away cafe tables and other outside furniture.
The violent thunderstorm dumped a huge amount of water on the city centre in the space of 20 minutes, after which skies cleared.
High water was also reported in Venice, further south.
On the other side of the country in the northwestern region of Piemonte, firefighters and Carabinieri police had to intervene with a snowplough to free several cars that had been trapped in heavy snow in Colle dell’Agnello near Cuneo on the border between Italy and France.
No one was injured and the vehicles were subsequently escorted along the valley, while the road remained closed.
The situation was also critical in Lombardy in the north, where a dozen people were evacuated as a precautionary measure in the small village of Santa Lucia in Valdisotto near Sondrio due to the partial flooding of the Frodolfo River at its confluence with the Adda River on Monday morning.
The extreme weather also caused major disruptions to national transport connections, with Italian road and motorway operator Anas announcing the closure of three major roads in the northern regions of Lombardy and Piemonte.
Further, the Italian-French Intergovernmental Commission for the Turin-Lyon railway line said that international railway connections between Italy and France through the Frejus tunnel had been suspended “for an indefinite period” following a landslide in France’s Alpine Savoy region bordering Piemonte on Sunday.
The Commission said French railway operator Sncf has blocked all trains in their stations of origin and that it could take days and maybe a week for services to be restored.
On Sunday, the northwestern coastal region of Liguria was hit by violent storms, with 80 mm of rain falling in less than an hour in Genoa alone.
The rainfall caused widespread flooding of roads, leading to the closure of the city subway and underpasses.
However, so far there have been no reports of injuries.
Not far away across the border in Piemonte, lightning knocked out rail systems in Novi Ligure, causing disruptions on the Turin-Genoa line.
ANSA
