Climate scientists say human-induced climate change has led to heavier rainfall during storms like Ciarán, often resulting in more severe damage,
Euronews reports.
At least five people were killed in Italy after record-breaking rain caused floods across Tuscany on Thursday night, trapping residents in their homes, inundating hospitals and overturning cars. The addition of the Italian numbers brought the total death toll of Storm Ciarán in Western Europe to 12 on Friday.
Some 200mm of rain fell within just three hours overnight from the coastal city of Livorno to the inland valley of Mugello, according to Italian authorities, causing riverbanks to overflow.
Videos circulating online show the devastation left by the heavy rain, with cars being pushed down flooded roads and towns taken over by the water.
The governor of Tuscany, Eugenio Giani, said the storm dumped an amount of rainfall that the region had not recorded in the last 100 years. "There was a wave of water bombs without precedence," Giani told Italian news channel Sky TG24.
Climate scientists say human-induced climate change has led to heavier rainfall during storms like Ciarán, often resulting in more severe damage.
"If the conditions are different than 20 years ago, it is obvious to everyone,'' Nello Musumeci, the Italian government's minister for civil protection told Sky TG24, noting that weather systems in Italy have become more tropical.
Among the 5 victims in Tuscany are an 85-year-old man found on the flooded ground floor of his home near the city of Prato, north of Florence, and an 84-year-old woman who died while trying to push water out of her home in the same area, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
