Seven dead after severe storms in France, Switzerland and Italy

At least seven people have died in violent storms and torrential rains that hit France, Switzerland and Italy this weekend, local authorities said on Sunday.

Three people were killed when torrential rain triggered a landslide in southeastern Switzerland, police in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino said on Sunday.

Elsewhere in Switzerland, a man was found dead at a hotel in Saas-Grund in the southwestern canton of Valais, police said, adding that he was likely caught by surprise by a sudden, rapid rise in floodwaters.

Pictures published in the online publication 20minuten showed parts of the city covered with a thick layer of mud and stones.

In addition, another man is missing in Valais, police said.

In France, three people aged between 70 and 80 died on Saturday in the northeastern region of Aube when a falling tree crushed the car they were traveling in, local authorities told Agence France-Presse.

A fourth passenger is in intensive care, it said.

The Swiss civil protection agency said that “several hundred” people had been evacuated and roads closed in the southern canton of Valais after the Rhone and its tributaries overflowed their banks in several places.

The situation in Valais was “under control” on Sunday, said Frederic Favre, the official in charge of civil security, at a press conference. However, he warned that the situation would remain “fragile” in the coming days.

Emergency services were assessing how best to evacuate the 300 people who had come to the hilltop town of Peccia for a soccer tournament. Nearly 70 more were evacuated from a holiday camp in the village of Mogno.

The bad weather made rescue operations particularly difficult, police had previously explained, as several valleys in the southern cantons of Ticino and Valais near the border with Italy were inaccessible and cut off from the power grid.

In Ticino, around 400 people – including 40 children from a holiday camp – had to be evacuated from the risk areas and taken to civil protection centers.

The federal warning system also reported that parts of the canton were without drinking water.

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, who comes from Ticino, said the repeated disasters “have deeply affected us”.

These are the worst floods in the canton since 2000, when a landslide destroyed the village of Gondo, killing 13 people.

Scientists say human-caused climate change is increasing the severity, frequency and duration of extreme weather events such as floods and storms.

Floods and landslides also occurred in northern Italy in Piedmont and the Aosta Valley, but no fatalities were reported.

The Piedmont fire department said on Sunday morning that it had carried out 80 missions to rescue people in distress.

A landslide temporarily blocked a regional road to the Cervinia ski resort in Aosta Valley, a semi-autonomous region bordering France and Switzerland.

A river that overflowed its banks caused considerable damage in the city centre and several streets were flooded.

A landslide blocked access to Cogne, a village of 1,300 people in the Aosta Valley, where 90 millimeters of rainfall were recorded within six hours on Saturday.

At the 2024 European Football Championship in Germany, a match between Germany and Denmark was interrupted for almost half an hour on Saturday evening due to heavy rain and lightning strikes.