Floods kill at least five as storms thrash Italy

Residents wade through a flooded street after the passage of Hurricane Irma in Cuba. Similar floods have left five people dead in Italy. AFP photo

At least five people have died in violent rainstorms sweeping across Italy on Sunday, with the Tuscan city of Livorno taking the brunt of the flooding, fire services said.

Four people from the same family were found dead in a flooded house in the city, where rainfall in four hours transformed streets into rivers and washed away cars.

The Corriere della Sera daily said the dead were a little girl, her parents and a grandparent.

A fifth body was found in an area devastated by landslides. Three other people were missing, the fire brigade said.

"The situation is difficult, it is critical. We fear a disaster," Livorno mayor Filippo Nogarin said.

Italy's civil protection service issued a code orange alert for Florence as the storms, which began in northern Italy overnight, swept down the country towards the south.

Underpasses were being closed as a precaution in the capital Rome.

Coldiretti, Italy's main agricultural organisation, said the bad weather was aggravated by coming hard on the heels of a drought which had left the land drier than usual and unable to soak up the rains.

Rainfall in Tuscany in particular had been down 57% this summer, it said.

"The tropicalisation of the climate is causing an increase in extreme weather events, with heat waves, heavy cloud bursts and violent hailstorms which are damaging the national agricultural production," Coldiretti said.