Corpses washed from cemeteries in France-Italy floods

Gruesome find comes as 12 people are reported killed with a further 20 still missing

The task of searching for victims of the French and Italian floods in Alpine villages and on nearby coasts has grown more gruesome as authorities have said corpses from cemeteries have been swept down the mountain by violent rains.

A spokeswoman for France's Alpes-Maritimes regional administration, badly hit by the storm along with the Italian regions of Liguria and Piedmont, said it was unclear where the bodies had come from but corpses unearthed from cemeteries had washed up on the Italian side.