A northern Italian airport reopened this afternoon hours after being temporarily shut down when a cargo plane exited the runway after landing and slid onto a local road, Italy's civil aviation authority ENAC said.

The two-person crew of the aircraft was unharmed and there were no injuries on the ground, ENAC said in a statement.

The Boeing 737-400 aircraft, operated by a Hungarian carrier on behalf of freight delivery firm DHL, slid through the airport's fences after landing at Bergamo's Orio al Serio airport north-east of Milan amid reports of heavy rain.

The plane had just completed a night flight from France's Charles de Gaulle airport.

A spokesman for Dublin-based ASL Aviation Group, the parent company for the aircraft's operator, ASL Airlines Hungary, said the cause of the incident was being investigated.

"We cannot speculate on the cause and are concentrating on getting the plane off the road," he said.

Pictures posted on Twitter showed the aircraft's belly resting on a two-lane road with the nose poking onto another street and resting on a guard rail.

The incident happened at just after 0400 local time (0200 GMT) Friday morning, and the airport was reopened by 0700.

Although the airport is open, ENAC said travellers flying through should contact the airlines to make sure their flights are operating. 

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