UPDATE ON THE SITUATION – Violent storms and precipitation have caused significant damage in France, particularly in Corsica where around twenty rescue operations are underway.
Five dead and twenty injured: the human toll is already heavy in Corsica because of the storms and heavy rainfall that has been beating down on France since Tuesday evening. Significant flooding and other damage was observed in the South-East and in the PACA region. Le Figaro takes stock of these violent storms.
Corsica: a balance sheet of five dead and twenty injured
The results of the violent storms that hit the Corsica Thursday morning is established at five dead with the deaths of a fisherman in Girolata (Corse-du-Sud) and a kayaker in Erbalunga (Haute-Corse), the maritime prefecture told AFP. At the end of the morning, the prefecture of Haute-Corse had already announced the death of a 46-year-old man in Calvi (Haute-Corse), victim of a tree falling on his bungalow. In Corse-du-Sud, a 13-year-old girl, hit by a falling tree, and a 72-year-old woman, by the fall of the roof of a straw hut, also lost their lives. Twenty other people were injured, including four in absolute emergency.
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Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne announced that she had activated the interministerial crisis unit in view of the situation in Corsica, where violent storms left five dead and several injured. “Given the situation in Corsica, I activated the interministerial crisis unit. We closely follow the operations that take place on land and at sea., tweeted the head of government. Many interventions also took place at sea, in particular in Piana, Coggia, Cargèse and on the Ajaccian beach of Ricanto, also reported the prefecture. Corsica was placed Thursday in “significant risk of thunderstorms” by the Weather Channel *. “The situation should start to improve in the evening”the organization said.
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Power cut in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
After torrential rains in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes on Wednesday afternoon, “1000 homes are still to be resupplied this Thursday morning“, says Enedis to Figaro. The electricity manager continues that at “strongest of the stormy episode, a little more than 10,000 customers were impacted mainly in the departments ofAïn and some Loire“.
Technicians are currently at work to restore electricity as quickly as possible to the affected areas. Electricity should be restored in the morning.”for the most part” homes “and by the end of the day for the last customers to be replenished“. In Corsica, 45,000 customers were deprived of power throughout the island, announced EDF Corse.
Crop damage and loss
The thunderstorms caused damage in the north of the Gers where crops, already affected by heavy hail in June, were again damaged overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday. “I feel angry, frustrated, because we are 15 days away from harvest“, laments Philippe Larrey, farmer in Montreal-du-Gers. “On plots of vines, I lost 100% of the harvest. We won’t harvest them, and the wood is so bruised that the next harvest is already compromised.“, he continues.
Gers firefighters had to intervene more than 150 times, four patients from a retirement home in Condom had to be evacuated, the building having been damaged. On the normandy coasts and the Pas-de-Calais, after heavy rains which settled down at the end of the afternoon, around forty houses were flooded, particularly in the neighboring towns of Montreuil-sur-Mer and Boulogne-sur-Mer in Pas-de-Calais. A supermarket was evacuated in La Gorgue (North). There were no injuries or exceptional damage, according to the firefighters.
The south of France under water
the Gard and theHerault experienced intense storms on Wednesday afternoon. The stormy wave which started at the beginning of the afternoon persisted on the reliefs as well as at sea before touching the Var and the Bouches-du-Rhône. Still according to the Weather Channel, the equivalent of three weeks of rain fell locally in two hours, and even a month of precipitation in Saint-Sauveur-Camprieu (Gard).
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The Hérault was hit a second time in the evening. The stormy line shifted towards Nîmes then Arles, further east, but without causing significant disturbances. Around 9:30 p.m., the Gard firefighters assured AFP that the storm was “pastand that no significant damage had been reported. The Vaucluse firefighters, for their part, received many calls from the Cavaillon sector in the evening, “for falling trees and water infiltration in houses“. The flood also affected the Languedocaccording to several videos posted on Twitter.
In the Bouches-du-Rhone, in Marseille, the inhabitants noticed waterspouts on Wednesday evening. Lightning streaked the sky and rain fell steadily around 9:30 p.m., as well as in other parts of the department, “but no particular or notable interventions“, indicated the firefighters to AFP. The mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, warned on Twitter that “the storm is very violent» and invited its constituents to be «very cautious“. Images published by Internet users show torrents of water hitting the Marseille city. Flooding was reported around the port.
*The Weather Channel belongs to the Figaro group.
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