Cloudbursts, landslides and overflowing rivers in the valleys of Piedmont

TURIN, 30 JUNE – Landslides, floods, torrents in full flow, people displaced: this is the effect of the storms that yesterday hit the Alpine valleys of Piedmont and in particular in Alta Valle Orco, where Ceresole Reale and Noasca are isolated, in the Valli di Lanzo, in Alta Valsesia and in Verbano-Cusio-Ossola. Some locations in the Canavese area (in the province of Turin) were hit by a hailstorm with hailstones measuring up to 10 cm in diameter. About thirty tourists were left stranded in the shelters at the foot of Monte Rosa, in the Vco area, due to the Anza river leaving its bed at various points in the Alpe Burki area. In the area of ​​the Municipality of Macugnaga, where the Tambach torrent overflowed, about ninety people were evacuated. In Locana (in Valle Orco, in the Turin area) 37 people were transferred from a restaurant. In Chialamberto, a town in Val Grande that was hit by a mudslide and debris flow yesterday, a condominium of 50 people was evacuated as a precaution. In Noasca, where 72 mm of water fell, the waterfall formed by the Noaschetta torrent, well known to tourists and hikers, swelled to the point of covering the bridge on the road before flowing into the Orco torrent. The firefighters also intervened in the plain, where a strong hailstorm hit. In Mathi they moved two families due to the risk of flooding of the Stura di Lanzo torrent; in Montanaro they rescued a Belgian family, with a 3-year-old girl, who was staying on the banks of the Orco and was blocked by the flood. “A dramatically destructive event”. This is the message that Francesco Pietrasanta, mayor of Quarona (Vercelli) and president of the Valsesia Mountain Union, spread in the early hours of this morning regarding the storm that hit the area last night. “It doesn’t seem – he underlines – that there are any injuries, but the damage is a lot”. About twenty campers are blocked in Campertogno.