‘I lost everything’: Italians count cost of deadly flood in Marche

Workers and volunteers at work in the flooded streets of Ostra, a small town in the province of Ancona in the central Italian region of Marche. Photograph: Roberto Salomone/The Guardian

Her face and clothes splattered with mud, Isabella Puttilli, 74, fought back her grief as she sifted through the ruins of her home, among the dozens destroyed by catastrophic flooding that struck Italy’s central Marche region on Thursday night.

“I lost everything,” she said. “Food, furniture, I need to throw it all away.” But her emotions gave way as she entered the bedroom, where a photo hangs of her and her husband, who died seven years ago, on their wedding day. “He loved music, and had over 200 records,” she said. “All have been destroyed, really precious items that I’ll never get back.”