Several people were still missing and emergency workers were trying to access low-lying rural areas.
Italy declared a state of emergency on Tuesday after flash floods on the island of Sardinia left 18 people dead and forced hundreds to seek emergency shelter as the waters swept away bridges and flooded homes.
Several people were still missing and emergency workers were trying to access low-lying rural areas affected as the Mediterranean cyclone swept through on Monday, with officials saying some 20,000 people were affected.
Soldiers were deployed in the region and the government promised to send €20 million ($27 million) in emergency funds, as local rescue services said their efforts were being hampered by damage to roads.
The port city of Olbia, a popular holiday destination in the summer months, was left almost entirely under water and hotels, sports halls and residents on the island put up people displaced by the flood.
Among the dead was an entire family of four Brazilians who drowned in their basement flat in the town of Arzachena in the northern part of the island. Three people from another family also died when a road bridge collapsed onto their van near Olbia, while a mother and daughter were found dead in a car that was swept away in the city by surging waters. A 64-year-old woman died in her flooded home in Uras in the southwestern part of the island, while her husband was hospitalised suffering from hypothermia.
The heavy rain and high winds meanwhile shifted to the regions of Calabria and Campania in southern Italy and officials said they were monitoring the level of the River Tiber in Rome to check that it does not overflow. The holiday village of Sellia Marina in Calabria had to be evacuated and ferry services from Naples to the islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida were disrupted. In Sardinia, Gianfranco Galaffu, a local director of the civil protection agency, said that “around 20,000 people” had been affected by the flooding.
