Torrential rain kills at least eight in Switzerland, Italy

SION, Switzerland - Landslides crushed homes and flood-swollen rivers swept through towns in the Alps on Sunday, killing at least eight people in Italy and Switzerland. More than a dozen others were missing and feared dead.

Heavy rains pounded the Alpine regions, shutting down rail lines and roads and washing away some bridges. Twenty-four inches of rain have fallen in two days.

Helicopters worked throughout the day to ferry out residents of cut-off villages as authorities evacuated at least 3,000 people from Italy's Valle d'Aosta and Piedmont regions.

In Switzerland, after delays over fears of new landslides, rescue workers resumed their search Sunday for 13 missing after a mudslide destroyed nearly a third of the tiny town of Gondo on Saturday morning. But police said there was little hope for survivors.

''We don't know whether they were in the village or not at the time of the disaster,'' Valais canton (state) police spokesman Markus Rieder said. ''But it must be feared that they died.''

A smaller landslide Sunday near the Swiss village of Stalden swept away four houses left two people missing.

Rescuers found the body of a woman whose car was caught in a mudslide on the road leading to the Great St. Bernard pass, one of the region's crossings into Italy.

In Italy, police said a 7-year-old girl was killed, swept away when the Stura river overflowed near a Gypsy camp outside Turin. Three people were killed and two missing after mud and rock crushed houses in the village of Fenis in the Valle d'Aosta, emergency official Marco Ludovic said.

The mud-covered body of a 15-year-old boy was found in the same area, and an 85-year-old man drowned in a basement in the town of Aosta when a flooded river swept through.

Swiss President Adolf Ogi on Sunday visited the village of Simplon, near Gondo, and expressed his ''consternation'' at the disaster in the town of 200 people.

''Once again, we must recognize how powerful the forces of nature can be,'' he said.

The torrent of mud and rocks tore through Gondo, located on the Simplon pass road connecting Switzerland with Italy.

The Simplon rail tunnel, on the main line between Milan and the Swiss capital, Bern, remained closed due to flooding in Italy. Rail links from Brig, the main town in the region, were cut and likely will remain closed for several days, officials said.

The main highway into Valais state was closed, leaving the region practically cut off by land.

The flooding reached well beyond the Alps.

High waves swept over a merchant ship anchored in the northwest Italian port of Savona, carrying away three sailors. Searchers found one body and were looking for the other missing.

Heavy rains drenched parts of the French Mediterranean island of Corsica. A 33-year-old shepherd drowned Saturday while crossing a river to retrieve his flock of goats.