A 30-metre stretch of highway along a viaduct near the flooded coastal city of Savona collapsed, leaving cars suspended on a precipice.
In an aerial video released by Italy’s fire service, several cars and a truck could be seen perched dangerously close to the point where the section of the A6 highway in Liguria collapsed onto the wooded area below.
A driver of one of the cars closest to the edge where the bridge gave way stood outside his vehicle, holding up his arms towards oncoming traffic to warn others.
Giovanni Toti, the governor of Liguria, said firefighters were using dogs in the search for possible victims in the two-metre-high debris of mud caused by the landslide.
It was not known whether any vehicles might have plunged off the highway as it collapsed.
Meanwhile, around 150 people were evacuated from homes in the region, while the neighbourhood of Boccadasse, in Genoa, was flooded after the sea rushed over retaining walls and onto the road.
Elsewhere in northern Italy, a woman was found dead after floodwaters swept away her car.
In Turin, the Po burst its banks and flooded the medieval quarter and a popular riverside strolling area known as the Murazzi.
Venice was partially flooded, but the high tide’s level of nearly 1.3 metres in late morning was not unusual for the lagoon city and was far lower than the record levels reached earlier this month.
Meanwhile in the south, cars drove through water higher than their tires, and several drivers had to be rescued from their vehicles in flooded streets in Reggio Calabria.
In the Apulian city of Lecce, authorities ordered parks and cemeteries closed for fear that storm-battered trees might crash on to visitors, Italian news agency ANSA reported.
