The search is continuing in Rome this evening for a 27-year-old Irishman who fell into the Tiber River on Friday night.
Vincent Wall from Co Waterford is believed to have fallen from a bridge in a northern part of the Italian capital and been swept away in the early hours of the morning after a night out with friends.
Days of torrential rain have battered the city causing the river to rise to a dangerous level.
Mr Wall, who works as a dairy farmer in Colligan - a townland around five miles outside of Dungarvan, was in the city for a friend's wedding.
Today, locals and tourists alike lined up along bridges to watch police divers and other rescue workers search the river for Mr Wall as fears grew for his safety.
Three people are known to have died in the waters and the the city's mayor declared a state of emergency on Thursday following the storms.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin said it was aware of an incident in Rome involving an Irish tourist and was providing consular assistance to his family.
Mr Wall - understood to be the second eldest in a family of three girls and one boy - was due to be married in
January in Newry, where his fiance was from.
The couple were planning to live in Colligan where they had just recently built a house.
Mr Wall was a popular member of the small community, which has a population of around 1000, and an avid GAA fan.
"It is just a terrible tragedy, an awful thing to happen and so far from home," Dungarvan Fianna Fáil councillor
Anne-Marie Rossiter said.
"The whole of Dungarvan is feeling for the family at this time."
Colligan parish priest Fr Micheal Kennedy said the community was devastated. "The thoughts and prayers of all the parishioners are with the family," he said.
Mr Wall's father is also a farmer, while his mother is understood to be a nurse in St Joseph's Hospital in Dungarven.
A friend, who was with him at the time of the incident, was treated in hospital for shock.
The rain stopped for a few hours today, but returned in the afternoon and more was expected tomorrow.
Nevertheless civil protection officials said the threat that the Tiber might burst its banks had receded.
Italy has been battered by days of bad weather, which have dumped snow in the north and rains in the centre and south.
Italian farm lobby Coldiretti said the storms had caused millions of euros in lost crops and damage, primarily in the south.
In Rome alone, one of the capital's most heavily trafficked pedestrian bridges - the Ponte Sant'Angelo near the Vatican - was closed as civil protection teams tried to free a barge that became unmoored and slammed into the bridge.
Additional reporting by PA