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Rescuers work in a flooded street in the small town of Uras, Sardinia. A violent rainstorm flooded entire parts of the Mediterranean island

Seventeen people have died and hundreds were evacuated when storms tore through the Italian island of Sardinia last night.

Cars were swept away and caused a bridge to collapse, local media reported.

Television pictures showed torrential rain, with streets submerged in muddy floodwaters and rivers bursting their banks

Olbia Mayor Gianni Giovannelli said the city had been destroyed by the ''apocalyptic'' storm, with bridges felled and water levels reaching 3 meters (10 feet) in some places. He described the ferocity of the storm's rains as a ''water bomb.''.

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A woman wades through a flooded garden of a house that was completely flooded following a heavy storm, near Olbia, Sardinia

'We're at maximum alert,' Giorgio Cicalo, an official from the Civil Protection Authority in Sardinia told RAI state television.

'We haven't seen a situation as extreme as this, perhaps for decades. Especially because it's been across the whole island.'

Officials warned that, with the storm still raging, the death toll could rise.

According to local media reports, one police officer was killed and three of his colleagues were injured when a bridge collapsed.

In another incident, a woman and her daughter were drowned when their car was tipped on its side by the flood.

There was heavy rain across northern Italy as well as in the south with high winds and flooding in coastal areas, the Civil Protection Authority said.