At least five people were killed and two reportedly missing as torrential rain and storms hit southern Italy on Sunday, demolishing bridges, cutting off roads and derailing a Eurostar train.

In the town of Cassano delle Murge, not far from the Puglia port of Bari on the heel of Italy, three people died and two were missing when a bridge over a normally dry river bed was demolished by a wall of water.

The bridge collapsed as two cars carrying seven members of a same family were driving across it. Rescue workers had recovered the bodies of three of them and were still searching for two others, but they said there was little hope of finding them alive.

Meanwhile, 22 people suffered minor injuries when a high-speed Eurostar train derailed near Bari at local time 06:40 a.m. (0540 GMT) on Sunday morning.

In another incident to the south of Bari, a 24-year-old man died after a torrent of mud and rain smashed into his car and swept it into the sea.

In Catania, rescue workers found the body of a 46-year-old man who went missing Saturday on a hunting trip.

Bari Mayor Michele Emiliano has asked for a state of emergency to be declared, noting that seven towns in his region had been particularly hard hit.

The rainfall that Puglia had in the night from Saturday to Sunday equaled what it usually sees over an entire year, according to Civil Protection Department chief Guido Bertolaso.

"In just three hours, 161 millimeters of rain fell on a limited area of the region... It's unbelievable - a rare phenomenon that only happens once every hundred years," he said.

The rain abated in the south on Sunday afternoon and several days of dry weather were forecast.

Source: Xinhua