One man was missing as a flood emergency continued in the northwestern region of Piedmont Friday as several rivers broke their banks again and the Po sparked fears in Turin by sweeping away two tourist boats and sending them crashing into a bridge.
A man was missing after he fell into the river Pellice in Piedmont after a road gave way near Turin, fire services said. The man was from Perosa Argentina, in Val Chisone, the services said.
Turin's two tourist boats, Valentino and Valentina, broke their moorings because of a Po flood swell and got jammed against the arches of the Gran Madre bridge in the city centre. The bridge was closed.
A swell in the River Po between Cuneo and Turin sparked fears as Italy's biggest river broke its banks and flooded the village of Cardè. The flood water took down some power pylons, creating disruptions in the whole era, and fields were flooded, local sources said.
Meanwhile the Tanaro river flooded several places in and around Asti, after hitting the Cuneo area on Thursday. The river broke its banks in the Bormida Valley while river waters seeped out in the city of Asti proper, said local civil protection chief Roberto Imparato.
Piedmont's flood emergency is not over, Premier Matteo Renzi said after a visit to the regional civil protection headquarters in Turin. "We are now awaiting the swells of the rivers at Asti and Alessandria," he said.
The government will act "immediately" to address the flood emergency in Piedmont, Renzi said. "It is fundamental that in the coming hours the government moves immediately to help start assessing the damage and the aid the population needs", he said.
The flooding has been compared to the great flood of 1994 which killed 44 people and made 2,000 homeless, although Piedmont Governor Sergio Chiamparino has said this time the damage has been mitigated by a set of preventive actions taken since then. Severe flooding has also hit the neighbouring Liguria region where officials have said they will also ask for a state of emergency to be declared.
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