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Murderous rainfall wreaks havoc October 17, 2000. Three days of torrential rain high in the Alps, bordering Italy, Switzerland and France, have created a deluge of record proportions. These mountainous areas are among Europe's highest with Jungfrau (4158m) and the Matterhorn (4478m) the region's best known peaks. Mudslides, created by loose alpine soil and volumes of water, dumped tonnes of debris onto villages and hamlets in the valleys below. In the Swiss village of Gondo, the region's worst mudslide partially destroyed the Stockalper tower, dated to 1670. However, this slide was not entirely natural. It was the result of a dam, built above the village to trap flood waters, which collapsed. The dam was built after floods in 1993. Lower down in the Canton Valais, the city of Brig, which was flooded in 1993, was trying to cope with rising water levels on the Rhone. The death toll throughout Europe as a result of the flooding rose to 17 with 27 missing, presumed dead. The government declared a state of emergency in northern Italy, after 13 people died, 15 were missing and hundreds more evacuated. Three people died and some 12 others were still unaccounted for in south-western Switzerland. On the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, a shepherd was found drowned on Saturday afternoon in a tributary of the Restonica, according to local firefighters, as reported by Reuters. How it all happened This cloud/pressure composite image, from the UK's met bureau, shows a deep (971 hPa) low centred over northern England and driving cooler arctic air onto Spain and France. The white dots of cloud west of the Bay of Biscay offer a clue as to this storm's intensity: They are squall clouds with winds well over 30 knots. This storm was one of a handful of big bastards that occurred during the northern hemisphere's autumn equinox. The cold air associated with this low helped to create the right conditions for heavy rain to fall over northern Italy during the time of October 15. BELOW is a composite cloud and pressure map for Europe on October 15 at 00GMT. Compared to the map from three days earlier, this one shows a band of cloud reaching north across the Mediterranean Sea and over Italy. As can be seen from the larger-scale image at the top of this story, this cloud band originates over the equator west of Senegal and has delivered warm, moist air into Europe's high country, along the border with Italy and Switzerland. According to Derek Hardy, of the UK Met. Office, this near continuous stream of equatorial air was unusually warm for October. "As the air stream flowed north-west up the Adriatic it met a mass of much cooler air that had swung around that very deep low centred over the UK during the week before," recalls Hardy. "This contrast of conditions led to that downpour that lasted about three days with little movement." Aerial view of the Swiss village of Gondo after a mudslide destroyed part of the village October 14. A mudslide destroyed a third of the village, on the Swiss-Italian border. The land slide was caused when a dam of earth above the lower part of the village, constructed after a similar rain event threatened the town in1993, gave way under the mass of water.
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