19 January 2014
Torrential rain in Italy and France, especially in Liguria, causes landslides
Posted by Dave Petley
Liguria landslides
Over the last few days northwestern Italy and southeastern France have been suffering from intense rainfall, triggering widespread landslides.Worst affected seems to the Liguria region of Italy, for which reports suggest that the highest level of alert has been issued. I have been able to track down the following images of some of the landslides that the rainfall has triggered (note that all of the links are to Italian websites):
La Presse reports that over 100 landslides have been triggered in Liguria alone, and includes this image of one of them:
..
The newspaper Republicca has probably the best gallery of images, including this one:
La Stampa reports on probably the most spectacular event, the derailing of an express train near between Andora (Savona) and Cervo (Imperia). This was astonishingly close to a very serious accident:
..
This is clearly not a simple case of debris on the tracks:
..
This landslide will be rather complex to repair.