Five people were killed due to Ferocious storms and torrential rains that lashed France, Switzerland and Italy this weekend have left five people dead, local authorities said on Sunday.

Three people in their 70s and 80s died in France's northeastern Aube region on Saturday when a tree crushed the car they were travelling in during fierce winds, the local authority told AFP.

A fourth passenger was in critical care, it added.

In neighbouring Switzerland, two people have died and a third is missing after torrential rains triggered a landslide in the southeast, police in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino said.

According to local daily La Regione, the dead were two women who were on holiday in the Alpine region.

Emergency services were assessing the best way to evacuate 300 people who had arrived for a football tournament in Peccia, while almost 70 more were being evacuated from a holiday camp in the village of Mogno.

The poor weather was making rescue work particularly difficult, police had said earlier, with several valleys inaccessible and cut off from the electricity network.

Evacuations
The federal alert system also said part of the canton was without drinking water.

In the western canton of Valais, the civil security services said "several hundred" people were evacuated and roads closed after the Rhone and its tributaries overflowed in different locations.heavy rains