Violent storms tore through France on Saturday, claiming one victim in Rouen and causing camping scouts to shelter, while 50 departments remain on orange watch as of Sunday morning.
In Rouen, where some streets were transformed into a torrent by the violence of the storms, a woman in her thirties died trapped under a car after being swept away by the waters, she learned from the mayor’s office in the Norman town.
They found her but she died said the same source. Shortly before, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, had reported a “Missing woman in Rouen” On twitter.
At 22:00, Météo-France lifted the orange “Thunderstorms” watch for Seine-Maritime and 14 other departments, but another 50 departments, mainly in the north-eastern suburb of France, remain under watch.
In the Landes and Gers, hailstones of several centimeters fell on part of the Armagnac vineyard, winegrowers and local officials told AFP.
“This hail corridor followed the entire Lando-Gers border and it is estimated that between 4 and 5,000 hectares of vines and several tens of thousands of hectares of crops in Gers were affected,” said the president of the departmental chamber Bernard Malabirade. of agriculture
“In Montreal-du Gers, we had hail bigger than a golf ball!” according to the director of the Armagnac interprofessional, Olivier Goujon.
In Le Frêche (Landes), winemaker Nelly Lacave has found her 8.5 hectares of “chopped” vines. “In the vineyards there is nothing left, the roof of our agricultural warehouse is a giant Swiss cheese and in the house the windows were broken. My father, who is almost 70 years old, has never seen that,” she said. AFP.
Not far from there, in Labastide-d’Armagnac (Landes), Mayor Alain Gaube believes he has “it lost between 70 and 90% of the vines.” “On the ground there is a large part of the leaf and the grape. The grape that remains (on the vine) is already brown, it is dead”, regrets
If there are no injuries in the Landes, 4,500 homes have been left without electricity. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne promised in the evening that the government would be “there for the affected territories”, addressing the “victims of the bad weather that is hitting the entire country and the rescue teams that have carried out hundreds of interventions”.
Météo-France had warned that sometimes violent storms would develop in the southwest and move towards the north and east of the country, accompanied by heavy rains (locally 40 to 60 mm in a short time), gusts of wind and hail. , particularly in the South-West and the Massif Central.
under the tents
In fact, lightning lit up the sky in Brittany as well as in Centre-Val de Loire, Normandy and Ile-de-France. Amateur photographers have posted images of the top of the Eiffel Tower struck by lightning on social media.
“State services and @SecCivileFrance media are mobilized, ready to intervene,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Twitter, inviting the population “to follow the advice of the authorities and remain very vigilant.”
In Vincennes, east of Paris, the We love green music festival had to be interrupted because “the conditions are not pleasant for either the public or the artists,” a speaker on stage announced, according to an AFP journalist.
In the National Estate of Chambord (Loir-et-Cher), 30,000 unit scouts from France gathered for the Pentecost weekend had to shelter, including a third inside the castle.
“The storm passed around 4:30 p.m. It lasted a few minutes but was relatively strong and a gust of wind knocked down the Cubs’ tents.”explained to AFP Damien Tardy, in charge of relations with the press of the movement.
“Ten thousand young people, from 8 to 12 years old, were housed in the castle in cooperation with the prefecture”, the older ones “on a sloping plain”, according to him. “They are in tents under ponchos and they were singing when I went to see them.”
Loin de cette supercellule orageuse, la Corse a elle vue le mercure s’envoler: un record de chaleur pour un mois de juin a été enregistré au Cap Corse, dans le nord de l’île, avec 37.4 degrés, selon Météo- France.
At 8 pm., “About 5,000 homes were left without electricity in very localized areas” distributed in all regions affected by storms, according to Enedis
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