Death Toll Reaches 55 in Wake of Italy Mudslides

Thousands of rescuers battled against time Thursday in search of about 125 people still missing after torrents of mud smashed into villages in southern Italy, killing at least 55 people.

The government civil protection agency, which has the grim duty of updating the death toll, issued a fresh bulletin Thursday evening saying 55 bodies had been recovered.

Agency officials raised the number of people believed to be missing to 125, more than 50 over what it had been estimating for most of the day.

Days of torrential rain swept mud and topsoil off mountains in the Campania region east of Naples to create fast-moving rivers of mud that destroyed houses, stripping buildings of their contents and burying whole families.

“Unfortunately, as the hours pass, hopes of finding any of the missing still alive are fading,” civil protection agency official Andrea Todisco said earlier Thursday.

The town of Sarno, 17 miles east of Naples in Salerno province, has so far suffered the highest toll with 40 dead, Italian television said.

“They can’t even bring the dead to the cemetery because the cemetery doesn’t exist anymore,” one woman in Sarno said.

Television pictures showed some small homes buried and others without walls, exposing rooms from which mudflows had swept everything away.

Twisted cars and other vehicles could be seen upside down or wrecked, carried away with trees and boulders by mudslides.

“I’ll remember it all my life,” said one distraught villager. “I saw death with my own eyes.”

Thousands of rescuers assisted by Italian soldiers were searching for those still missing while helicopters scoured the area for signs of life. One helicopter managed to airlift an elderly couple from the rooftop of their trapped home.

Television pictures showed rows of wooden coffins lined up in a hall in Sarno, and some funerals had already taken place, with shocked families and friends saying they were unable to comprehend the scale of the disaster.