An icy torrent swarmed trough the streets of a town near Milan after a dramatic hailstorm in northern Italy.

Small ice sheets appeared to form on the surface of fast-moving water deluging part of Seregno.

In footage circulating on social media, taken from an upper floor, the person behind the camera says: “It looks like a river flowing.”

The street in the video is deserted other than for a man attempting to sweep floodwater out of the ground floor of a building.

“I see the shoes-shop owner in front on me and water is coming inside the shop,” someone out of shot in the videos says.

It followed a severe hailstorm that battered Italy’s northern Lombardy region, home to Milan, and the northeastern Veneto region.

The region was already reeling from a severe heatwave that had gripped almost the whole of Italy, bringing temperatures of 44C (111F) in the southern island of Sicily.

Scientists agree heatwaves in all parts of the world are getting stronger and more likely due to climate change.

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