At Least 33 People Die as Mudslides Slam Into Southern Italian Villages

At least 33 people were dead and 70 missing Wednesday after days of downpours drove rivers of mud and rocks through several towns in southern Italy, sweeping away cars and flattening houses.

About 2,000 people were left homeless after the mud spewed into low-lying villages in the Campania region around Naples.

One village square, in Sarno, was turned into a muddy plain littered with half-buried debris, and a house on the edge of the square was flattened.

“The latest toll is 33 dead and 70 still missing, but rescue teams are still working . . . unfortunately, those 70 may become victims,” said a spokesman at the Interior Ministry’s civil protection agency in Rome.

The hardest hit towns were Sarno, Quindici and Siano, all east of Naples in Salerno and Avellino provinces.

The civil protection agency said 13 people were killed in Sarno, 60 were missing and about 650 had been left homeless. Temporary shelters were set up in schools, markets and army barracks in nearby towns.

Television pictures showed people huddling together on a rooftop waiting to be saved. Others frantically waved white handkerchiefs and sheets from roofs, windows and balconies in the hope of being seen by rescue helicopters.

Part of the village was cut off. A staircase in the hospital collapsed after the building was hit by a landslide.

“It was like in the films,” hospital nurse Aniello D’Auria told ANSA news agency. “We were overwhelmed by a great black river. I was with two colleagues, and I didn’t even have time to shout ‘Get out of the way!’ before the staircase came down.”

In the town of Bracigliano, witnesses saw a mother and three young sons swept away in a tide of mud, ANSA reported.

Five people were reported dead in Quindici, including former Mayor Olga Santaniello.

It looked as if a giant chunk had been bitten out of the steep, tree-covered hillside above the village, leaving a brown scar where the earth had crumbled away.

Rescue helicopters were trying to find survivors in the solidifying mud swept from the hills.

Several roads in the area were closed, and thin layers of mud covered parts of some main highways.

The government set aside about $28.6 million in emergency aid for the region, which has the highest incidence of landslides in the country, and was expected to discuss further measures Friday.

Some experts blamed mass construction, poor infrastructure and lack of planning by local authorities.

“The region is just not properly prepared for disasters like this. We don’t even have any maps to show which are the areas most at risk,” Fernando di Mezza of the environmental movement Legambiente Campania told Italian television.

The rain had stopped in most of southern Italy by late afternoon, and better weather was expected Wednesday night and today.