ITALIAN STORMS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29316, 22 September 1960, Page 13

ITALIAN STORMS

Death Toll Rises

(A.Z. Pr*«.< Assoctction—Copvneht) ROME. September 21. Violent new rainstorms lashed Italy from the Alps to Sicily today, worsening the floods and landslides which have already taken 40 to 50 lives. The new storms burst over Milan, Venice and Siracusa. Milan was hit by a violent storm which flooded out traffic. The Venice area was battered by hail and drenched by new rainstorms. Rain, which had ceased briefly after five days in the flooded southern slopes of the Alps, resumed again. Storms spread south the length of the peninsula. Tweny-five were known dead in the Alpine foothills, but the toll is Likely to be much higher because no word has been heard from 300 towns and villages for days. Two thousand persons are in hospitals in the Alpine region, at least 100 of them in serious condition. Most had suffered exposure or been hurt in landslides or collapsing buildings. It is feared that many were buried alive under mudslides. At least 15 were reported dead in the Tarquinia area. 65 miles north-west of Rome, where raging floods washed sections of the Aurelian highway into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Helicopters were used to try to spot cars washed into the sea or buried in the mudbanks which covered the road. By nightfall 12 bodies had been recovered, five of them washed back from the sea by tides.