In the south-east of France and the north, search and repair work continues after the extremely heavy rains that hit the Alpine regions on Friday and Saturday. The rivers flooded there, tearing down houses or roads after tens to hundreds of millimeters of rain had fallen in a few hours.
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Floods in the southern French mountain resort of Saint-Martin-Vésubie Video: Reuters, Aktuálně.cz
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According to data from Sunday evening, at least eight people died in floods on both sides of the border, two of them in France. Offices found five bodies off the coast of northwestern Italy. According to French firefighters, eight people are still missing in connection with the storms.
“An unprecedented catastrophe, an event we haven’t seen in more than a century,” according to franceinfo, Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi said. The area around the center of the Côte d’Azur is the worst affected of the French regions. Heavy rain started there before noon on Friday, and the total precipitation for a ten-hour period then climbed to 500 millimeters.
The result was a flood wave that tore down bridges and entire houses, cut off power supplies and cut off some villages from the outside world. According to AFP, there were 1,000 firefighters in the field in the French department of the Alpes-Maritimes on Sunday morning in an effort to repair the damage and secure the missing. Hundreds of rescuers and members of the armed forces were also involved in the search operations. French firefighters reported finding a man’s body in a flooded car near Nice. The Italian search team, meanwhile, found the body of a French shepherd, Reuters reported.
Similar developments have been reported in several Italian regions, notably Val d’Aosta (Aosta Valley) and Piedmont. According to ANSA, some places recorded record rainfall totals, with as much rain falling in “a few hours” as in six months. Material damage is said to climb to tens of millions of euros after the great water destroyed homes and roads.
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