Mudslides in southern Italy kill 3 people (AP)

ROME – Torrential rain battered eastern Sicily on Wednesday, where mudslides have killed at least three people and muddy torrents have swept away cars and washed out bridges, authorities said.

A mudslide in the hamlet of Saponara, near the Sicilian port city of Messina, fatally struck a 10-year-old boy Tuesday as his family fled their home. Much of Italy's terrain is landslide-prone, and many have built homes on steep hillsides in defiance of warnings by geologists.

Muddy torrents of water rushed through the Messina area, sweeping along cars as if they were toys and knocking down part of an elevated roadway.

Heavy rains also lashed Calabria, the southern Italian region across from Sicily. State railways said washed out railway bridges, landslides on track and flooding caused suspension of service on some routes.

About 100 soldiers were sent in to Saponara, one of the worst hit towns, to rescue residents stranded in flooded homes or vehicles, Italian news reports said.

This fall, flash flooding in Genoa, northwest Italy, killed at least six people, and at least nine perished in severe floods in Tuscany and the Cinque Terre tourist area of Liguria.

President Giorgio Napolitano asked local authorities to express his solidarity and closeness to the victims' families and repeated his appeal to Italians to pay urgent attention to their fragile environment.

Some of the flooding has been blamed on failure to regularly clean storm drains.

Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi had been criticized by environmentalists for concentrating his government's efforts on his pet project to build a bridge over the strait dividing Messina from Calabria, instead of devoting financial resources and manpower to more mundane projects like maintaining drainage systems and shoring up hillsides prone to landslides.

With Italy now slashing spending to cut deficit and devote resources to reviving the economy and prevent financial disaster, the plan to build a bridge has fallen by the wayside.

"A dramatic national emergency is before our eyes," said Stella Bianchi, the center-left Democratic Party's point person on the environment. "We are paying a painful price for years of errors, culpable lack of attention" and excessive building, she said in a statement.

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Joplin Tornado: 232 People Still Missing, Names to Be Released (ContributorNetwork)

JOPLIN, Mo. -- The deadly tornado that struck here on Sunday killed 125 people as of the most recent count. In the days that followed, speculation was rampant as to how many people were missing after the tornado. Some media reports stated 1,500 people were missing.

The Missouri Department of Public Safety has been directed to keep track of missing persons following the tornado. At this time, there are 232 known people who are missing and have had reports filed with the state. Names have been released and the list of missing are posted here.

CNN reports deputy director Andrea Spillars led the press conference in announcing their findings. A 24-hour effort of combing through hospital reports, cell phone records, shelter counts and talking to family members has led to the number of missing persons. Over 60 members of the Department of Public Safety worked around the clock to check on family members who are still looking for someone in the aftermath of the deadly tornado.

If someone is found or known to have been found, the local number to call in Joplin is (417) 895-6868.

The temporary morgues are being processed as thoroughly as possible. DNA samples and tests, as well as talking to potential family members of the deceased, are being taken as seriously and deliberately as possible to ensure a correct match. They've been working on the process for 24 hours, and things should speed up now that they have more staff and resources with which to work.

Spillars reiterated the names on the official missing list will be used to help find those individuals. She also stated regular briefings will be held regarding the progress that is being made to find all the missing.

A reporter at the briefing asked whether or not there is any overlap between the number of deceased and the number of missing. Spillars did clarify that some of the missing may indeed simply be those who are dead but not yet identified due to the painstaking process used to make sure the names are place with the right families of the dead.

Technically, the maximum amount of dead will be 357. It depends upon how much overlap there exists between the two numbers of dead and missing. The death toll could go much higher than what was feared before.

To put the numbers in perspective, National Weather Service records state the second deadliest single tornado in the United States is 317 from back in 1840. The fourth deadliest on record is 216.

No matter how many missing turn into a list of dead persons, the tragedy in Joplin will be one of the worst in modern record-keeping.

William Browning lives in Branson, Mo.

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