Aerial view of the village of Neuville-sous-Montreuil, in Pas-de-Calais, November 17, 2023 (AFP/Charles Caby)
“Started on all rivers” on Sunday, the clear decline observed for three days in Pas-de-Calais is slowed down by new precipitation, which could cause levels to rise again until Monday noon.
On soils saturated by two weeks of devastating floods, the rains that fell on Sunday in Pas-de-Calais, which “are expected to continue until midday Monday”, risk “raising the levels of waterways” , warns Vigicrues.
Pas-de-Calais is placed on yellow rain-flood, flood and wind alert until Monday at midday, according to the latest Météo-France bulletin.
The floods, which have left 5 people injured since November 6, have also affected 6,000 homes, 160 businesses, 130 businesses and 53 farms according to the prefecture. A regional elected official estimated the number of victims at more than 10,000, a certain number of whom cannot return to their homes.
Vigicrues fears in particular a reaction on the Canche, in the south-west of the department, where “the decline is thwarted by recent rains, always causing localized overflows”.
The organization also forecasts new floods between Sunday evening and Monday morning on the Liane, the Hem and the Aa, some of the rivers most at risk in recent days.
It is precisely in the Aa basin that the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, is expected on Monday afternoon, who will meet in Arques then Saint-Omer with “local stakeholders and representatives of the insurance, in order to accelerate care and support for disaster victims,” Bercy announced on Sunday.
“The compensation must be exemplary and our response to the economic world must be exemplary,” argued the Minister of the Economy on Sunday in an interview with the daily La Voix du Nord, insisting that “no company should close its doors. the door because it was the victim of these floods”.
To enable the department to overcome the upcoming precipitation, additional pumps were installed on Sunday, “to reach the unprecedented capacity of 100,000 m3/hour”, indicated the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, on X, ex-Twitter .
These new rains come at a time when Pas-de-Calais has been experiencing a slow but saving decline for three days.
“We still have water in several areas” around Montreuil-sur-Mer and Saint-Omer, “but the decline is starting on all the waterways,” the Pas-de-France prefecture told AFP. from Calais on Sunday morning. “The situation is clearly improving,” she added.
This figure demonstrates this: only one evacuation was carried out on Friday, and none on Saturday, compared to nearly 1,500 between November 6 and 16, indicates the prefecture.
Aerial view of the village of Neuville-sous-Montreuil, in Pas-de-Calais, November 17, 2023 (AFP/Charles Caby)
For example, the water has significantly receded in Maresville, a town close to the Canche which suffered a “tsunami” last week, in the words of mayor Maxime Delianne, and where the Dordonne, a river which crosses the village, has finally found his bed Sunday morning.
“Now the priority is cleaning,” adds Mr. Delianne, assuring that “in some houses, there is nothing left”, the water having carried away or destroyed everything in its path. In some homes, it is up to 1.50 m, he emphasizes.
To help with reconstruction, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, promised on Saturday during a trip to Audruicq, near Calais, “a specific envelope” for the affected municipalities.
A total of 181 municipalities in Pas-de-Calais and 24 in the North have already been recognized as being in a state of natural disaster on Wednesday. A new natural disaster recognition meeting is planned for next week.
© 2023 AFP
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