A violent afternoon storm swept across the Milan area on Sunday, killing a 63-year-old woman and injuring two companions when a tree fell on them in the town of Robecchetto con Induno, west of the city. The fatal incident followed several days of extreme heat across Italy. Firefighters said they had completed around 50 emergency interventions, with another 37 under way, mainly to remove dangerous trees, pump out flooded basements and secure torn-down billboards. Milan closed all public parks as a precaution, and a lightning strike stopped a high-speed Italo service on the Milan-Rome line near Melegnano, leaving passengers facing delays of up to 70 minutes. Italy’s Civil Protection Department kept Lombardy and Veneto under orange alert, extended yellow warnings to 11 other regions and continued to monitor the Seveso River for possible overflow. While hail and gale-force winds battered the north, temperatures remained close to 30 °C in much of central Italy and approached 44 °C in parts of Puglia, underscoring the country’s sharp north-south weather divide.