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FEROCIOUS STORMS AND torrential rains that lashed France, Switzerland and Italy this weekend have left at least seven people dead, local authorities have said.
Three people died after torrential rains triggered a landslide in southeastern Switzerland, according to police in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino.
Elsewhere in Switzerland, a man was found dead in a hotel in Saas-Grund in the southwest canton of Valais, police said, adding that he was probably taken by surprise by a sudden rapid rise in floodwater.
Another man is also missing in Valais, police said.
In France, three people in their 70s and 80s died in the northeastern Aube region yesterday when a falling tree crushed the car they were travelling in, the local authority told the AFP news agency.
A fourth passenger was in critical care, it added.
Switzerland’s civil security services said “several hundred” people were evacuated in the southern canton of Valais and roads closed after the Rhone and its tributaries overflowed in different locations.
The situation in Valais was “under control” today, Frederic Favre, the official responsible for civil security, told a press conference, but he warned that it would remain “fragile” for the next several days.
Emergency services were assessing the best way to evacuate 300 people who had arrived for a football tournament in the mountain town of Peccia, while almost 70 more were being evacuated from a holiday camp in the village of Mogno.
The poor weather was making rescue work particularly difficult, police had said earlier, with several valleys in the southern cantons of Ticino and Valais near the border with Italy, inaccessible and cut off from the electricity network.
In Ticino, some 400 people – including 40 children from a holiday camp – had to be evacuated from risk areas and taken to civil protection centres.
The federal alert system also said part of the canton was without drinking water.
Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, who is from Ticino, said the repeated disasters “have touched us deeply”.
It’s the worst flooding experienced in the canton since 2000 when 13 people were killed in a mudslide which destroyed the village of Gondo.
Scientists say climate change driven by human activity is increasing the severity, frequency and length of extreme weather events such as floods and storms.
In northern Italy, Piedmont and the Aosta Valley also suffered flooding and mudslides, though no deaths were reported.
Firefighters in Piedmont announced this morning that they had carried out 80 operations to rescue people in difficulty.
A mudslide temporarily blocked a regional road to the ski resort of Cervinia in the Aosta Valley, a semi-autonomous region located along the border with France and Switzerland.
A river which burst its banks caused significant damage to the centre of the town where several streets were flooded.
A mudslide blocked access to Cogne, a village of 1,300 people in the Aosta Valley, where 90 millimetres of rainfall was recorded in a six-hour period yesterday.
At the European football championships in Germany, a match between Germany and Denmark yesterday evening was interrupted for almost half an hour because of heavy rain and lighting.
Another pointless flight on a government jet.
@v39e84kK: It’s not a pointless flight you absolute whinger. They were invited by Ukraine to visit. Every foreign dignitary that visits is a show of solidarity. To refuse the invitation would be worse.
@Seán Ó Briain: No it wouldn’t, what effect would it tangibly have? This meeting served no purpose. Ireland is already helping Ukraine and will continue to do so. This achieved nothing but wasted money and you know that.
@v39e84kK: You can imagine it now Putin on the loudspeaker in the Donbas region “the west is with us comrades! the Taoiseach came! the Tanaiste! 8 other Irish politicians! But….the Ceann Comhairle did not! onwards to protracted conflict!”
@v39e84kK: why don’t you lot ever relax and try and understand why Ireland does what we do and why we should do it.
@Paul Furey: “you lot”? Who is that exactly?
@v39e84kK: awww somebody sad they didn’t get to go on the govt jet ..? :(
@Ciaran: Yeah, that’s it Ciaran. You are a great detective. Honestly the amount of people who don’t care how the government spends their time and money is amazing.
@v39e84kK: eh Dominic Ukraine asked him to visit, how about you let the Ukrainians decide what they think is useful cause I’ve a feeling they might have a better sense of usefulness 8n their country then you do. The whinging on here is limitless sometimes
@v39e84kK: government officials need to travel abroad for diplomatic Missions. Have a day off will ya
@Sean Minihane: no they don’t. This is at least the fifth Irish politician to visit Kyiv. It’s pointless.
@v39e84kK: the whingers like you who complain about everything
Also, the EU is an economic union. I have no ill-will to that nation but why on earth are people championing that a country in absolute ruin after a war be let into an economic union of trade and free movement? That’s insanity for everyone except Ukraine, and probably not so good for them either if it does a brain-drain on the kinds of people they need to rebuild their nation.
@v39e84kK: if You were A Ukrainian would You make them comments We Have to Support Our Fellow Europeans against A Dictator
@pat seery: What does that have to do with EU membership? Oh, nothing. I see.
@v39e84kK: “…why on earth are people championing that a country in absolute ruin after a war be let into an economic union of trade and free movement?” Maybe because it would be the right thing to do?
@Earth Traveller: No. But you are entitled to your opinion. Shall we add Nigeria, Congo, Rwanda into a free trade and free movement union too? Turkey is too corrupt for the EU but Ukraine after a war is a good member state? No. It’s not. Ukraine is very corrupt, that’s well documented. Educate yourself. The place had a coup less than a decade ago essentially.
@v39e84kK: you clearly know nothing about Ukraine then do u. Economically it is a very string country
@Peter Roche: is it yeah? So how was it’s EU application going in the 20+ since it became a sovereign state? Oh it wasnt. Will it be economically strong after the war? No.
I really don’t know how Volodymyr Zelenskyy keeps going. He must be physically and mentally exhausted.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: no worries for that, US keeps sending good stuff. He is skiing every day the white powder in his office ! The best is when he is at the office on Saturday night for his TikTok party ! This is priceless..
Yemen, Syria, Libya and Palestine next.. Nah don’t thinks..
Big unit.
I hope Zelinsky asks him why we haven’t kicked out the Russian ambassador and his cadre of staff.
Most people who live here would like to see them booted out.
@Davey Ohanlon: nope because, what does that achieve for the Irish in Russia, we should be at the front of peace talks instead of in the line throw milltary aid into this mess
@Ken Red: What makes you think we would have any say in peace talks?
@Ken Red:
That’s assuming Putin wants peace and it’s also assuming that the Ukrainians and others are willing to forgo war crimes charges against Putin and his army.
Do you honestly think Putin would settle for peace without coming away without any land gains?…not a hope in hell.
The sanctions, asset seizures of his pals, loss of Russian soldiers lives, their economy, their military proven to be inept and vulnerable to western weapons.
He literally can’t afford to strike a peace deal and come away with nothing.
A peace deal with Putin will basically be a form of appeasment and no deterrent not to do the same again.
Game of Thrones expo photo Op.
Why
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