LUGO – The death toll from floods that have devastated north-eastern Italy rose to 14 on Friday, according to media reports, amid calls for the government to revive an abandoned project to mitigate the impact of natural disasters.

Authorities in Ravenna ordered the immediate evacuation of two small towns and issued an “extremely urgent” call for residents to reduce their movements to a minimum in the region, which was still subject to a red weather alert.

“The death toll has risen to 14,” a spokesman for the region said.

The latest victim to be found was a man recovered from a flooded house in Faenza, a picturesque city usually surrounded by green pastures and vineyards, left largely underwater after the fierce downpour earlier this week.

Nearly half of the 10,000 people evacuated from their homes spent the night in local refuge centres set up in gyms or hotels, with others receiving hot meals from mobile kitchens deployed in several cities.

Locals in Faenza shovelled mud out of their homes, piling sodden mattresses, clothes and furniture together in mountains of waste.

In Ravenna, rain was still falling and mayor Massimo Isola described a “disastrous situation” in hamlets up in the hills surrounding the city.

As rescue workers searched for people still cut off by the waters, details emerged of the final moments of some of those who died.

One, 75-year-old Giovanni Pavani, refused to leave his house on Tuesday, telling his neighbour Marina Giocometti he had put sandbags along the windows and would be fine, according to the Corriere della Sera daily.

He was on the phone to her when waters began rushing in, telling her “I’m cold, so cold. The furniture’s floating around the house”, she said.

Ms Giocometti told him to stand on the table, and she would call the emergency services, but the line suddenly cut out, she said.

Other victims included two farmers in their 70s who might have been electrocuted while trying to move a fridge inside a flooded house, Italian media reported.

A couple in Ronta di Cesena were believed to have been hit by a wall of water as they went to check on their herb farm.

The body of the woman, in her 60s, was pulled 20km by rushing waters to the beach in Cesenatico, according to SkyTG24.

The rescue of a three-year-old boy from his mother’s arms, as she stood outside her house in water up to her chest, calling for help, went viral on Wednesday.

Fabiana, 36, told the paper on Friday she would “never forget” the selflessness of the man – a Serbian cook called Dorde – who swam to her and took the boy, hoisting him onto his shoulder, before swimming him to safety.

“I told my son it was a game and he had to climb as high as possible up whoever picked him up,” she said.

Nearly two dozen rivers and streams flooded across the south-east of the low-lying region following heavy rain earlier this week, submerging entire neighbourhoods and farmland, and damaging 400 roads.

Agricultural lobby Coldiretti said on Thursday that more than 5,000 farms were under water, with drowned animals and tens of thousands of hectares of vineyards, fruit trees, vegetables and grain flooded.

The Mayor of Ravenna, Mr Michele De Pascale, announced on Thursday that residents of about a half dozen towns could return, but warned them “to exercise the utmost caution”.

Cracks in river embankments still posed a risk to other areas, which were being closely monitored, he said.

As the water receded in some areas, residents were left cleaning homes and streets thick with mud and filled with debris.

In Lugo, near Ravenna, Mr Flavio Abbondanti, 39, was waiting for the water that had inundated his home to subside so he could get to work.

“We used what we could find from a work site to make a little barrier, but (the water) still came in,” he said.

The downpour – which saw half a year’s rainfall in just 36 hours – caused billions of euros worth of damage and prompted questions nationally as to why more is not being done in terms of climate change mitigation.

Experts warn such disasters are becoming the norm due to human-induced climate change which is exacerbating both droughts and storms.

In 2014, then prime minister Matteo Renzi set up a task force called Italia Sicura (Safe Italy), entrusted with flood and landslide prevention.

But it was scrapped in 2018 by Giuseppe Conte, head of a coalition government uniting the populist Five Star Movement and right-wing League, and replaced with a project that failed to get off the ground. AFP