A violent hailstorm has brought traffic to a halt on one of Italy’s main highways, injuring a number of people and smashing car windows.
The storm hit part of the northern stretch of the road between Milan and Naples, which runs for almost 500 miles.
Hundreds of cars were pelted with hail, forcing drivers to pull up by the roadside and causing authorities to close part of the road for a short time.
Footage broadcast by Italian weather channel Meteo Weather 24, showed vehicles with smashed windscreens, stopped on the road as the storm passed.
A number of people were hurt, mainly by glass shards from cracked windscreens but no one is believed to be seriously injured.
While hailstorms ravaged mainland Italy, forest fires forced at least 900 people from their homes in central Sardinia.
France and Greece sent four planes to help put out the wildfires, which consumed around 20,000 hectares in the Italian province of Oristano.
The aircraft joined 10 Italian firefighting squads and five other planes deployed to tackle the fires which broke out over the weekend and have been spread by dry southerly winds.
No deaths or injuries have been reported.
