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:

Liguria

http://www.lapresse.it/cronaca/maltempo-in-liguria-oltre-100-frane-e-almeno-200-evacuati-1.446933

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The newspaper Republicca has probably the best gallery of images, including this one:

liguria

http://genova.repubblica.it/cronaca/2014/01/19/news/maltempo_allerta_fino_alle_15_strade_riaperte_ma_ancora_frane-76346580/#gallery-slider=76364923

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:

liguria

http://www.lastampa.it/2014/01/17/multimedia/italia/liguria-frana-sui-binari-deraglia-un-intercity-nvpBrPr32qJvwWcx2HmEgM/pagina.html

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This is clearly not a simple case of debris on the tracks:

liguria

http://www.lastampa.it/2014/01/17/multimedia/italia/liguria-frana-sui-binari-deraglia-un-intercity-nvpBrPr32qJvwWcx2HmEgM/pagina.html

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This landslide will be rather complex to repair.