Divers pulled out the nine from a home flooded by a rapidly swelling river in the countryside near Palermo.

State TV broadcaster RaiNews24 said the sole survivor of the flood that ravaged the villa with water and mud was the owner, who had just stepped outside to walk the family dogs on Saturday when the torrent hit.

News reports said the man at first clung to a tree, then ended up on the roof of a nearby house.

He used his phone to call for help but it was too late for the others inside, who included a one-year-old baby, a three-year-old child and a teenager.

The victims were from two families who had gathered in the country villa for the weekend.

A man's body was also found on a guardrail along a road in the Palermo area after floodwaters swept away his car, Italian news reports said.

Across the island, in the town of Cammarata, near Agrigento, the fire department said its divers were working to recover the bodies of two people swept away while driving on a road near the flooding Saraceno River.

Also in Agrigento province, firefighters rescued 14 people from a hotel in the town of Montevago, which was threatened by floodwaters from the Belice River.

Agrigento, famed for the ruins of ancient Greek temples, is a popular tourist destination.

Elsewhere in Sicily, at least two other people were missing on Sunday after floodwaters swept away their cars, including a doctor heading to the hospital in the hill town of Corleone.

The deadly rainstorms and flooding that has swept over Italy over the past week have left a toll of 29 dead in total and a trail of destruction from Veneto in the north to Sicily in the south, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said.

Australian Associated Press