PARIS (Reuters) – Seven people were missing late Sunday morning in southeastern France after heavy rains triggered by the passage of depression Monica, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said.
“We have seven missing, six in the Gard department, one in the Ardèche department,” Gérald Darmanin told the press, speaking of “extremely difficult and violent” rainy episodes.
Thirty-five rescues saved lives, added the Minister of the Interior. Helicopters, drones and nearly 300 firefighters and rescue personnel are mobilized to try to find the missing, whose vehicles have been located.
In the Gard, a father and his two children were swept away by floods while trying to cross a bridge over the Gardon by car in Dions, north of Nîmes, two women disappeared after alerting the emergency services in Goudargues and a motorist from 62 years old has not been found since Saturday evening in the Gagnières sector, said Sunday morning during a press briefing the secretary general of the prefecture, Frédéric Loiseau.
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Eight departments in the southwest and southeast of France (Charente-Maritime, Landes, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Ardèche, Gard, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var, Alpes-Maritimes) as well as Yonne in Burgundy, were placed on orange alert on Sunday at 10:00 a.m. by Météo France due to bad weather.
(Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
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