Bridges were swept away and villages hit by mudslides and floodwater in Italy’s Tuscany and Liguria regions yesterday during torrential downpours that killed five, officials said.

Previous reports had put the number of dead at nine.

Up to 500 millimetres of rain fell in just a few hours overnight Tuesday to yesterday, according to weather reports.

Around 10 people were reported missing.

The areas worst hit were the Spezia region and the picturesque Five Lands tourist destination, where three people died. Two bodies were also recovered from a mountainous region in northern Tuscany.

A 50-year-old woman and an elderly couple from the village of Borghetto were swept to their deaths in a river of mud. Another young woman was swept along for over a kilometre but was later found exhausted and in a state of shock.

The director of Italy’s first aid and rescue service, Franco Gabrielli, said: “Right now the priority is getting to people before nightfall.”

Authorities were “working to get basic services back on as in some areas there was no electricity, water, gas and communications are difficult,” he said.

“When the water reached my thighs, I was swept up by a rescue worker and carried to safety,” said tobacconist Aurora Moggia from Monterosso, who watched as a minute later a landslide of mud and rubbish swept through the town.

Inhabitants in Borgetto Vara and Brugnato were rescued by monks in a nearby monastery who provided shelter to around 30 people, feeding them and giving them dry clothes.

“Italian citizens are having to pay the price for... overbuilding authorised in areas at risk which instead should be freed up by demolishing dangerous buildings,” environmental organisation WWF Italia said in a statement.

“All this happened in just a few minutes, it’s shocking,” said a local member of the civil protection agency at the site of a landslide which devastated the town of Aulla, where 300 people took refuge overnight in a gym.