16 killed in French Riviera floods
Print Edition
AT least 16 people have been killed in flash floods around the French Riviera, as torrents of muddy water yesterday inundated buildings, roads and railways, disrupting movement along the Mediterranean coast.
Residents and tourists described it as the worst flooding they’d ever seen. It was so dramatic that it prompted President Francois Hollande to yesterday pay an emergency visit to promise government aid for victims.
Helicopters patrolled the area and 27,000 homes were without electricity yesterday, after rivers and streams overflowed their banks and fierce thunderstorms poured more than 17 centimeters of rain on the Cannes region in two hours on Saturday night. That’s the equivalent of two months of rainfall for the region, local radio France Bleu-Azur reported.
Hollande said the death toll as of midday yesterday was 16, with three still missing. Government officials had given conflicting reports about casualty figures earlier in the day.
“It’s not over,” Hollande said, visiting the flood-stricken retirement home in the town of Biot and meeting with emergency workers.
He expressed condolences to families of victims and urged residents to remain cautious, especially on the region’s roads, many of which remained impassable yesterday. He promised aid for residents hit by the flooding and lamented serious damage to local stores and other businesses.
Some residents criticized authorities for not doing more to prevent flood damage in the region. Local firefighters and meteorologists said the amount of rain was unusual for the region this time of year, but were especially shocked by the intensity and speed of Saturday’s storm.
People were found dead in the towns of Cannes, Biot, Golfe-Juan and Mandelieu-la-Napoule in the southeast, the president’s office said.
Three elderly people were killed in the retirement home, Hollande said. Three others were found dead in their car after entering a flooded tunnel, authorities in Golfe-Juan said. Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said the dead included victims who had been trapped in a parking lot and campsites as well.
Winds and rain whipped palm trees along the famed Croisette seaside promenade in Cannes in images shown on BFM television. Some cars parked near Cannes shore were swept away and overturned by high waves.
In Antibes, campsites along the Brague River were suddenly inundated with muddy water.
Several trains were stopped because of flooded tracks, and traffic was halted along the Mediterranean coast between Nice and Toulon yesterday morning, according to the SNCF rail authority. Several roads in the region were closed.
The flooding also disrupted a French league soccer match in Nice, forcing the stadium to be closed down in the middle of play.
Hundreds of emergency workers were yesterday involved in rescue efforts, helped by clear skies around the region.
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