Liguria Coast Under Water: Flash Floods Inundate Italian Towns as Two Drivers Trapped in Submerged Cars

Genoa, Italy— The sea was angry, the sky even more so. Early Tuesday, a self-regenerating thunderstorm stalled over Liguria's narrow coastal strip and dumped months of rain in hours. Water roared off the Apennines, straight into seafront towns. Two drivers were trapped.

ANSA news agency said the worst hit was around Sestri Levante and Chiavari, east of Genoa. Rainfall rates topped 80 millimeters per hour. Storm drains backed up. Underpasses filled like pools. Cars floated.

Fire brigade divers pulled a man in his sixties from a sedan submerged under a railway bridge at 7:40 a.m. His car had stalled in 1.5 meters of water. A second driver, a woman in her forties, was trapped near a coastal roundabout after a torrent of mud cut her lane. Both were taken to hospital with hypothermia and minor injuries.

Shop owners in Lavagna woke to brown water up to their counters. "The street became a river in ten minutes," one bar owner said, sweeping mud from his floor. "No siren. Just water." His refrigerator had tipped over.

Liguria's president issued a red alert for hydrogeological risk at 6 a.m., but many commuters were already on the road. The A12 motorway was closed for two hours. Regional trains between Genoa and La Spezia were delayed. Schools in three municipalities shut.

This coast is built for disaster. Steep mountains, short rivers, towns squeezed between. Concrete covers old riverbeds. When storms train over the same spot, there is nowhere for water to go.

Civil Protection said 40 interventions were logged by midday, mostly for pumping basements and clearing landslides on the SP 523. Meteorologists said the trough will shift toward Tuscany but warned of more unstable conditions offshore.

Officials said damage assessments will begin once waters recede. Insurance claims will follow. That process takes months here.

Tonight the water is lower but the roads are slick with mud. The sea wall in Chiavari is cracked. Another alert is in force.