High winds of over 140 kilometres an hour killed two people and injured more than 50 in Italy's northeast costal city of Trieste in the past 24 hours, health officials said on Thursday.
A 58-year-old truck driver died after he was struck by one of the doors of his vehicle which blew off in the gale as he was unloading cargo, the officials said.
An 85-year-old man was killed when he was blown over outside his home and hit his head on the ground, according to the officials.
The local health authority has warned citizens, especially the elderly, to avoid going out of doors and to take maximum care to avoid being blown off their feet by the gale-force winds.
A icy cold front and gales have been battering Italy this week with heavy snowfalls in several regions including Sardinia and mountainous areas of central Italy that left several hundred thousand people without power.
Four strong earthquakes struck the central Abruzzo region on Wednesday, triggering an avalanche that is believed to have killed 30 people. A 67-year-old man froze to death in the southern Puglia region on Monday when he fell asleep on a street and several homeless people and many hundreds of animals have also died of cold.
