Two tourists missing after floods hit central Italy

A 5-month-old baby and his grandmother were reported missing on Tuesday after floods hit Italy’s central Tuscany region, according to firefighters.

A rescue mission for the two foreign nationals used divers, rescue dogs, and drones.

Firefighters did not specify their nationality, but said the baby’s parents and grandfather were evacuated from a rooftop after the house where they were staying was flooded in the Pisa province.

A spokesperson for the firefighters, Luca Cari, called the situation “critical”.

“We always aim at finding people alive, but this accident doesn’t leave us many hopes,” Cari said.

The flooding started after a local river broke its banks in Montecatini Val di Cecina in central Tuscany.

Heavy rain also left 700 homes without electricity and caused local roads to close, Tuscany’s President Eugenio Giani wrote in a Facebook post on Monday night.

Giani added that the area had not seen such intense bad weather since 1928.

Tuscany joins Italy’s northern Emilia-Romagna region, which was also battered by floods, forcing more than 1,000 people from their homes.

Flooding hits parts of the UK

Meanwhile, parts of the UK were left submerged by flash floods after several areas saw a month’s rainfall in only 24 hours.

Dozens of people were forced to evacuate after their houses were flooded with about 60 to 80 millimetres of rainfall in central and southern England.

In Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, roads turned into rivers with one resident Sunil Ladwa said he was “stupefied” that measures had not been implemented to deal with the flooding.

In London, the Fire Brigade said that emergency responders had received around 350 calls related to flood incidents, including people trapped in cars and flooding in homes and businesses.

A football pitch also collapsed at Cherry Red Records Stadium, leaving a match scheduled for Tuesday cancelled.