Several dead bodies that were found on the Italian coast are in a state of "great decomposition" and "must very probably correspond" to coffins swept away in floods from French cemeteries, according to reports on Monday.
Several bodies were found Sunday on a beach in Liguria, Italy, two days after violent storms hit the southeast of France and the north of Italy.
"These are not recent deaths (...) but old corpses which must correspond to the bodies of the cemeteries engulfed by the floods of water," said state representative of the French Alpes-Maritimes department Bernard Gonzalez, according to RTBF.
"We are in the process of gathering elements to identify them. But it is difficult because they were found nude and we have no identification elements," said coastguard Giuseppe Semeraro, from the Italian port of Imperia.
According to Gonzalez, one person - a motorist found in his submerged car at Saint-Martin-Vésubie - died during the storm, and eight people went missing.
The disappearances are based on "credible and direct testimonies," he said, adding that 13 other people "supposedly disappeared where we have testimonies but not first-hand ones," he said.
The search for missing people is continuing, reports La Libre, and access to the roads is also being re-established by clearing away the debris.
The Brussels Times
