Rescuers with sniffer dogs searched yesterday for several people who are still missing, after the mud swamped entire villages and suburbs of Messina on the island's eastern coast, Mayor Giuseppe Buzzanca said. Rescue efforts were hampered by the fact that many roads were impassable and the terrain still unstable with continuing rain.
Residents and firefighters used shovels and bulldozers to clear the mud, which in some areas reached as high as the door handles of cars and homes. Mangled cars lined area beaches, apparently swept from town to the water's edge.
At least 20 people were killed, officials in the prefect's office said. Another 40 people were hospitalised, many of them transported by sea, civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso said. Authorities gave varying numbers for people missing, ranging from five to 20.
400 seeking shelter
Some 400 people were seeking shelter in area schools, gyms or hotels, officials said.
The government in Rome declared a state of emergency for the area, freeing funds for emergency relief and reconstruction.
Officials blamed the overnight storm, which unleashed some 25 centimetres (nine inches) of rain in just three hours. But they acknow-ledged that deforestation and unregulated development had weakened the soil and contributed to the mudslides from Messina's surrounding hills and cliffs.
Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano, denounced the illegal construction, which he said had caused "widespread" disruption in Messina's topography.
They were Italy's deadliest landslides since 1998, when a rain-drenched mountain near Naples unleashed a torrent of mud that submerged villages and killed 150.
Residents in one of the hardest hit villages, Giampilieri, were outraged at the destruction, saying it was a tragedy foretold since a massive mudslide tore through the town in 2007, yet nothing was done to shore up the mountainside above.
Among those killed around Messina was a man who was submerged and suffocated in the mud on the main piazza of a southern suburb, the ANSA news agency said.