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STORM

High winds scrub gym festival opening

Winds gusting to more than 90 kilometres an hour forced the cancellation of the Swiss federal gymnastics festival’s opening ceremony in Biel on Thursday night.

Published: 14 June 2013 08:00 CEST
High winds scrub gym festival opening
Photo: Biel-Seeland.ch

Participants were evacuated shortly after 8pm from the Expo park site at the city in the canton of Bern for safety reasons, the ATS news agency reported.

A tent housing first aid attendants threatened to overturn on hundreds of visitors but there were no injuries, the agency reported.

Visitors were advised to move toward Bienne’s downtown area.

The wind ravaged a campsite for the festival, ripping apart tents and scattering belongings across a wide area.

It is not clear from reports how people who were to have stayed overnight in the campsite were to be housed.

Billed as Switzerland’s largest popular sporting event, the gymnastics festival involves 60,000 athletes from across the country, with 120,000 spectators, tripling the normal population of Biel.

The festival is also the oldest sporting event in the country, dating back to 1832.

Competition, which got under way on Thursday morning, continues until June 23rd.

Elsewhere, high winds fanned flames after a sawmill caught fire in Orbe in the canton of Vaud on Thursday night.

The Uldry SA mill sustained serious damage but there were no injures, 20 Minutes reported. 

Numerous trees were blown down in various regions.

A 22-year-old driver and a 29-year-old passenger were killed when their car struck a fallen tree in Dietikon, Zurich cantonal police reported on Friday.

Two other passengers were injured in the accident, which occurred on Thursday at around 9.30pm, police said. 

Stormy weather hit much of western and central Switzerland on Thursday night following an inflow of warm air from the south.

Temperatures rose to 31.6 degrees in Visp in the canton of Valais and 30.6 degrees in Sion, the canton's capital, ATS reported.

Geneva recorded a high of 30.1 degrees.

High winds and grey skies have sent the mercury dropping but MeteoSwiss, the national forecaster, is predicting is predicting increasingly warm weather through the weekend.

On Monday, temperatures are expected to rise above 30 degrees in many parts of the country, with highs of 33 degrees forecast for Valais.  

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CLIMATE

Four dead as storms, floods and tornadoes wreak havoc across northern and central Italy

High winds, tornadoes and giant hail: extreme weather hit many parts of Italy's north and centre-north this weekend, leaving at least four holidaymakers dead and causing widespread damage. Weather alerts continue over the coming days.

Published: 31 August 2020 09:28 CEST
Four dead as storms, floods and tornadoes wreak havoc across northern and central Italy
File photo: Marco Bertorello/AFP

Severe weather has been reported over the weekend everywhere  from South Tyrol down to the central region of Lazio around Rome, with at least four people killed in two separate incidents, and several reported missing.

In Tuscany, two girls aged three and 14 were reportedly killed on Saturday night when a tornado reportedly uprooted a tree which hit their tent at a campsite in Marina di Massa.

Two German tourists were killed on Sunday night during severe flooding on the Brenner state road near Bolzano, South Tyrol, the Ansa news agency reports. A family car collided with a lorry, killing two of the passengers; a 45-year-old father and 67-year-old grandmother. A seven-year-old boy and his grandfather reportedly survived, while the lorry driver was unhurt. 

The vehicles had been diverted onto the local road when the motorway was closed due to storms. The motorway has now reopened on Monday, however train lines in the area remain closed.

A 38-year-old man has been reported missing in the Varese area after being swept away by a swollen river.

The city of Verona is bracing for further flooding after being hit by multiple waves of bad weather since August 23rd, with high winds and giant hailstones also causing considerable damage in the area.

Severe damage was reported across much of the Veneto region, with the Vicenza and Belluno areas also hit particularly hard. The famed ski resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo in Belluno suffered landslides due to strong winds and heavy rain.

In the Vicenza area of Veneto a tromba d'aria (small tornado) flattened trees, fences and road signs and damaged buildings.

The bad weather reached neighbouring Lombardy with hailstones “the size of eggs” reported in Cremona and Mantova, and heavy rain and flooding in Alessandria.

And in Bergamo, firefighters had to clear roads made impassable by severe hail.

Meanwhile in parts of the south, fire crews have been battling blazes in woods and scrubland from southern Tuscany and Marche to Sicily after a hot, dry summer. 
 
Italy's Civl Protection department continued to issue weather warnings on Monday with orange (level two) alerts in place for Veneto, Trentino Alto Adige and Lazio.
 
 
Lower-level yellow alerts were also issued for Friuli Venezia Giulia, Lombardy and Tuscany.
 
With the wave of bad weather expected to spread south over Monday and Tuesday, yellow alerts were also issued for the regions of Abruzzo, Emilia Romagna, Marche, Molise, Puglia, Sicily, Tuscany and Umbria on Monday.
 

 

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