Italians Evacuated as Flood Death Toll Hits 25

Italian officials hurriedly evacuated more than 15,000 people from the path of two raging rivers Tuesday as flood waters that wreaked death in Alpine towns bore down on the medieval villages and cities of the north Italian plains.

The death toll in Italy and Switzerland rose to 25, with the mud-caked bodies of a 1-year-old Italian boy and a woman believed to be his mother among the latest uncovered. Twenty-one people in the two countries were missing and feared dead.

On Tuesday, crews evacuated entire villages in the paths of the Po, Italy’s longest river, and the Ticino, which feeds it from the Alps.

The floods and landslides started Saturday in southern Switzerland and northern Italy after days of pounding rain.

Most of the deaths came over the weekend when mud and water rushed through villages and towns, sweeping away even massive stone houses. In the Swiss village of Gondo, rescuers digging through mud and rock found only bodies Tuesday.

Hopes faded for the 10 people still missing in Switzerland. Jean-Rene Fournier, president of the Valais cantonal government, said it now appeared that a body recovered Monday in Gondo was that of a woman whom rescuers had heard faintly tapping just hours before.

With roads to Switzerland’s famed ski resort of Zermatt blocked, authorities used helicopters to fly out stranded tourists. Seven-hundred had left by late Tuesday; 1,000 more were on a waiting list.