By
The Associated Press
SION, Switzerland - Floods and landslides swept through stormy northern Italy yesterday after burying a village in the southern Swiss Alps one day earlier. Dozens were feared dead.
In Italy, rescuers recovered five bodies yesterday and were searching for others. In Switzerland, 15 people were missing.
Day after day of heavy rains in the Alps region linking Italy, Switzerland and France have fed flooding and triggered rock and mudslides, shutting down rail lines and roads and washing away bridges.
Twenty-four inches of rain have fallen in two days.
In Switzerland, little hope remained for 13 people missing from the tiny town of Gondo, officials said. Saturday morning, mud and rocks tore through the village on the Simplon pass road connecting Switzerland with Italy.
"We don't know whether they were in the village or not at the time of the disaster," Valais state police spokesman Markus Rieder said. "But it must be feared that they died."
By nightfall Saturday, no bodies had been recovered. The risk of further landslides delayed rescuers from resuming a search until yesterday afternoon, police said.
The slide destroyed a third of Gondo, population 200, police said.
Swiss President Adolf Ogi visited nearby Simplon village yesterday and expressed his "consternation" over the disaster. "Once again, we must recognize how powerful the forces of nature can be."
The slide apparently occurred after a smaller mudslide caused a buildup behind a protective dam above the village that gave way from the weight of the water.
Two people were missing after a smaller landslide yesterday near the Swiss village of Stalden swept away four houses. Several other villages in the region also were evacuated.
The Simplon rail tunnel, on the main line between Milan and the Swiss capital, Bern, remained closed because of flooding in Italy. Rail links from Brig, the main town in the region, were cut and likely will remain closed for several days, officials said.
The region's other road link to Italy, over the Great St. Bernard pass, also was closed.
Across the Alps in the southern Swiss city of Locarno, 60 people were evacuated from a private clinic and a hotel as Lake Maggiore burst its banks.
In Italy, a 7-year-old girl was killed when an overflowing Stura River swept her away outside Turin, police said.
Three others were killed and two others missing after mud and rock tumbled off a mountain overlooking the village of Fenis in the Valle d'Aosta, crushing homes, emergency official Marco Ludovic said.
At least 3,000 others have been evacuated from the Valle d'Aosta and Piedmont regions.
The flooding reached well beyond the Alps.
High waves swept over a merchant ship anchored in the northwest Italian port of Savona, carrying away three sailors. One body has been found.
Heavy rains drenched parts of the French Mediterranean island of Corsica. A 33-year-old shepherd drowned Saturday while crossing a river to retrieve his flock of goats.
