One person is dead and another is
missing due to flooding in the Vicenza area caused by a deadly
wave of extreme weather that has battered Italy this week.
The car of the two men, a father and son, plunged into the Agno
'torrent', an intermittent stream, after a sinkhole opened up on
a bridge in Valdagno amid torrential rain overnight.
The body of one of the men was found by the Vicenza fire brigade
in the basin of the Trissino dam early on Friday.
This week's torrential rain, gales and, in some areas, heavy
snowfall continued to cause massive disruption on Friday, with
6,400 people in the Aosta Valley without electricity.
"We are working hard but our interventions are conditioned by
difficulties in accessing the sites," said Giorgio Pession, the
president and CEO of Deval, the company that distributes
electricity in the Aosta Valley.
"We have not yet managed to reach some areas. We are also
operating with the help of a helicopter.
"Cogne is where the situation is most delicate situation, while
power has been restored in Valdigne, from Courmayeur to La
Thuile".
On Thursday a 92-year-old man drowned in his home on a hillside
near Turin as he was trapped by the flood waters and four
occupants of a cableway cabin died as it crashed amid extreme
weather on a mountain near Sorrento.
Scientists say the climate crisis caused by human greenhouse gas
emissions is making extreme weather events such as heatwaves,
droughts, supercharged storms and flooding more frequent and
more intense.
Although there are many sources of the greenhouse gases that are
causing global heating, the main driver is the burning of fossil
fuels such as oil, gas and coal, sales of which generate huge
profits for the world's energy giants.
Italy is particularly exposed.
Extreme weather events linked to the climate crisis caused over
765,000 deaths worldwide between 1993 to 2022, including around
38,000 deaths in Italy, Germanwatch said in its 'Climate Risk
Index 2025' report in February.
The development, environment and human rights organization said
Italy was the fifth-worst-affected country by these climate
events in the period in question after Dominica, China, Honduras
and Myanmar.
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