Southern France has been hit by powerful storms and flooding that have claimed at least three lives. The severe weather has caused extensive property damage, power outages and major disruptions to transport and telecommunications.
Local authorities in the Bouches-du-Rhône department announced the deaths on Wednesday evening, October 21. The threat of flooding forced hundreds of residents in the department to leave their homes.
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The French newspaper La Provence reported that two women, aged 86 and 26, were found drowned in Lançon-Provence. They had been in a basement that was inundated by floodwater.
A 75-year-old man also died after being swept away by fast-flowing water in the Saint-Mitre-le-Rébard area. His body was later found in the neighboring municipality of Istres.
With their homes no longer safe, around 250 people were temporarily relocated to emergency shelters in the towns of Arles and Saint-Martin-de-Croix.
More than 700 firefighters took part in the emergency response. They carried out hundreds of rescue operations, pumped water out of buildings and worked in the highest-risk areas.
The western part of the department was the hardest hit: torrential rain flooded residential areas, forcing authorities to close several roads.
Heavy rain flooded roads and damaged road and rail infrastructure, also leading to the suspension of transport services. Thousands of households were left without electricity, while telecommunications failures made communication more difficult in the affected areas.
The situation in France follows extreme weather in eastern Spain, where Storm Adam had claimed five lives in the preceding days.
Successive waves of severe weather have caused flooding and considerable damage in several parts of the western Mediterranean. The aftermath has put pressure on both residents of the affected areas and emergency services.
