Firefighters in the Italian city of Palermo have worked through the night searching for people thought to have been trapped in a car in a flooded underpass after the most "violent" rainstorm in memory, according to local officials.
The rain, which reportedly fell intensely for several hours, caused widespread flooding in Palermo on Wednesday and resulted in the hospitalisation of two small children for hypothermia, Italian news agency ANSA said.
As the underpass search continued, police said they had received no report of people missing.
Leoluca Orlando, mayor of Palermo on the island of Sicily, described the downpour as "the most violent rain in the history of the city since at least 1790, equal to that which falls in a year".
Comment: Another report by EuroWeekly states that 2 people died trapped inside a car.
Wide areas of Colombia have seen heavy rainfall since the start of July. According to the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD), the rain has caused over 80 incidents of flooding or landslides in 19 departments of the country, with over 5,000 families affected.
Meta, Putumayo and Antioquia Departments
Flooding in Meta Department affected the municipalities of El Castillo, Lejanías, El Dorado, Guamal, Cubarral, Granada, Acacias and Villavicencio. The departmental government reported on 06 July that 1,245 families were affected and 131 families evacuated. Twenty-four homes, several bridges and over 1,000 hectares of crops have been damaged. The Meta government said the Ariari, Guape, Guamal, Guayuriba, Urichare, Cumaral and La Cal rivers all overflowed after heavy rain in early July.
Hundreds of homes were damaged by flooding in Sibundoy and Mocoa municipalities of Putumayo Department on 04 July, 2020. Media report over 2,000 families were affected.
Heavy rainfall caused flooding in dozens of cities and villages in Iran's northwestern province of Ardebil, forcing many families to leave their homes.
Roads to some 50 villages have been cut near Meshkinshahr, Ardebil Province, due to the heavy rain and flooding.
Necessary measures are underway to reopen the roadways to the areas.
Two villagers have gone missing after the flash floods and a search operation is underway.
Some 200 millimeters of rain pounded South Korea's southern regions on Monday, leaving several people dead and causing traffic accidents, flooding and destruction of roads, houses and facilities, officials said.
According to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), 277 mm of rain fell in Sancheong of South Gyeongsang Province for one day by 2 p.m., followed by 228 mm in Buan of North Jeolla Province, 210 mm in Geoje, west of Busan, 158.2 mm in Gwangju and 160.2 mm in Daejeon.
In the southeastern province of South Gyeongsang, the per-hour precipitation reached 30 mm, while southwestern coasts, Incheon and five Yellow Sea islands close to the North Korean border were put under a strong wind advisory, the agency said.
A week of torrential rain pounded southwestern and central Japan, triggering severe flooding and landslides that have killed at least 68 people in the region. Kumamoto prefecture in Japan's southern island of Kyushu has been hardest hit, and over the weekend residents braced for more extreme weather. On Saturday some areas observed more than 80 millimeters of rainfall per hour and 1,000 mm over three consecutive days. Strong winds, lightning, and tornadoes were also added to the weather warning. The Ministry of Land reported 282 mudslide disasters across 27 prefectures with the largest number, 52, in Kumamoto prefecture.
Eastern and western Japan are on high alert for heavy 24-hour downpours with a risk that rivers in Iwate and Aomori could overflow. New mudslide warnings have also been issued for Kyushu as past rain loosens the ground and damaged river levees inundate low-lying areas.
Almost four million people have been hit by monsoon floods in South Asia, officials said Thursday, with a third of Bangladesh already underwater from some of the heaviest rains in a decade.
The monsoon -- which usually falls from June to September -- is crucial to the economy of the Indian sub-continent, but also causes widespread death and destruction across the region each year.
"This is going to be the worst flood in a decade," Bangladesh's Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre chief Arifuzzaman Bhuiyan told AFP.
The heavy rains have swollen two main Himalayan river systems -- the Brahmaputra and the Ganges -- that flow through India and Bangladesh.
Five persons were killed and one injured after being struck by lightning in Jharkhand's Dumka and Giridih districts, officials said.
According to Dumka Sub-Divisional Officer Maheshwar Mahato, lightning struck 30-year-old Somlal Besra and 20-year-old Rajiv Hansda when they were having snacks at a roadside eatery at Makrampur in Masalia police station area.
Both of them died on the spot, Mr Mahato said. Shop owner Bablu Das (27) was admitted to a health centre with burn injuries, he said.
In a separate incident in Dumka, Rafique Ansari, who was in his 30s, died during lightning strikes at Asna village in Shikaripara police station area, the SDO said.
In Giridih district, 12-year-old Nitesh Pandit and 35-year-old farmer Ramesh Rai were also fatally struck by lightning during the day, police sources said.
"Mr. President, the GLADIO system has operated for four decades under various names. It has operated clandestinely, and we are entitled to attribute to it all the destabilization, all the provocation and all the terrorism that have occurred in our countries over these four decades, and to say that, actively or passively, it must have had an involvement. It was set up by the CIA and NATO which, while purporting to defend democracy, were actually undermining it and using it for their own nefarious purposes."
~ Greek MEP at a European Parliament debate about 'Operation GLADIO', 22 November 1990
- Vassilis Ephremidis
”
Recent Comments
Perhaps it would be easier if you started with the main belligerent, America and its fascist Nazi enabler.
Comment: Another report by EuroWeekly states that 2 people died trapped inside a car.