Nine people died and hundreds more were evacuated in storms on the Italian island of Sardinia on Monday night.
Television pictures showed torrential rain, with streets submerged in muddy floodwaters and rivers bursting their banks, Reuters reports.
"We're at maximum alert," Giorgio Cicalo, an official from the Civil Protection Authority in Sardinia told RAI state television.
"We haven't seen a situation as extreme as this, perhaps for decades. Especially because it's been across the whole island."
One of the dead was a police officer who was killed when a bridge collapsed. Three of his colleagues were injured.
The worst-hit area appears to be in and around the north-eastern city of Olbia, reports the BBC.
Hundreds of people across the Mediterranean island have been evacuated from their homes to escape the floodwaters.
