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Storm Ciaran kills five as it brings record rainfall to Italy

RECOR-BREAKING rain produced floods in a vast swath of Italy’s Tuscany region as Storm Ciaran pushed into the country overnight, trapping residents in their homes, inundating hospitals and overturning cars. 

At least five people were killed, bringing the storm’s death toll in western Europe to 12 on Friday.

Italian Civil Protection authorities said that nearly eight inches of rain fell in a three-hour period. 

Video shows at least a dozen cars getting pushed down a flooded road.

“There was a wave of water bombs without precedence,” Tuscany Governor Eugenio Giani told Italian news channel Sky TG24, after he had reported five deaths on social media.

The dead in Tuscany included an 85-year-old man found in the flooded ground floor of his home near the city of Prato, north of Florence, and an 84-woman who died in the same area, according to Italian news agency ANSA. Another victim was reported in Livorno.

At least three people were missing yesterday in Tuscany, and one person was reported missing in the mountains of Veneto, north of Venice. 

The storm left at least seven people dead as it swept across Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany on Thursday. 

More than a half-million French households remained without electricity for a second day, mainly in the western region of Brittany. 

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