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WEATHER

One dead, two missing in Italy flooding

UPDATED: One man has died and two are missing in the Emilia-Romagna province of Piacenza after heavy rain swept across many parts of northern Italy overnight, causing flooding and landslides.

One dead, two missing in Italy flooding
Storms have hit parts of northern Italy. Photo: Giorgio Galleoti

The body of 56-year-old security guard Luigi Albertelli was found near his car in the Ponte dell'Olio area, Ansa reported on Monday.

Two brothers, who may have been travelling on a motorway that was hit by flooding, are still missing.

Flooding also hit nearby towns as well as several cities in the Veneto region, while a motorway near Cortina was blocked due to a 30-metre landslide.

Torrential rain also caused flooding in the Ligurian port city of Genoa, many parts of which were wrecked by flooding less than a year ago after the Bisagno River broke its banks.

In mid-August, two people were killed when storms swept through Italy.

Earlier in the month, three people in the Veneto region died in landslides. A week later, the government pledged to spent €1.3 billion on flood prevention and safety measures.

Environment Minister Luca Galletti said at the time that €654 million had already been made available to the cities worst-hit by flooding, while adding that an agreement would be made with unions to allow around-the-clock work on the most critical projects.

A series of floods and landslides across northern and central Italian regions between October and December last year also claimed thirteen lives.

The floods in Genoa last October were the worst to strike the city since 2011, when seven people, including two children, lost their lives. But money allocated to build flood safety measures at the time was never spent, due to legal wrangling.

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WEATHER

Norway to get a taste of summer with 20C days this week

Summer is finally here! Or least it is if you live in southern Norway, where a warm front coming up from Europe will bring t-shirt temperatures of 20C by Thursday, according to forecasts.

Norway to get a taste of summer with 20C days this week

Warm air from southern Europe will combine with a high pressure zone which will bring clear skies and sunshine, with summery weather coming towards the end of the week, Norway’s national weather forecaster Yr has reported. 

“Thursday and Friday especially will be nice,” Ingrid Villa, a meteorologist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, told the public broadcaster NRK. “Then we will probably get temperatures of over 20 degrees Celsius in some places.” 

Patches of 20C warmth are expected both in western Norway around Bergen and in Western Norway around Oslo, with the area around Tromsø expected to have slightly cooler weather, although Villa said that “it will absolutely be something like summer there too”. 

The warm sunny weather is, however, expected to pass northern Norway by, with grey overcast skies expected for much of this week. 

But if you think summer has come to Norway to stay, you risk disappointment as much cooler temperatures are expected next week.  

“There’s nothing unusual in getting an early taste of summer in April and the start of May, and then we can quickly go back to cooler more spring-like weather,” Villa said. 

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