France affected by violent storms, a victim in Rouen
Violent thunderstorms crossed France on Saturday, claiming a victim in Rouen and leading to the sheltering of scouts who were camping, but this stormy activity will decrease on Sunday according to Météo-France which has lifted orange vigilance for the last 25 departments concerned.
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, we informed the office of the mayor of the Norman city.
“She was found but she died”, said the same source. A little earlier, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had reported a “missing woman in Rouen” on Twitter.
Météo-France raised the orange vigilance “Storms” on Sunday morning for the 25 departments which remained concerned, mainly located in the north-eastern quarter of France. Earlier in the night, the meteorological monitoring body had lifted this vigilance for the North, Pas-de-Calais and Seine-et-Marne.
In Yonne, near Avallon, gusts of wind exceeded 100 km / h and more than 30 mm of water fell in 12 minutes in Dornes, in the south of Nièvre, according to Météo-France.
The electrical activity was very intense, totaling around 50,000 lightning strikes in 24 hours, reports Météo-France.
In the Landes and Gers, hailstones of several centimeters fell on part of the Armagnac vineyard, local winegrowers and officials told AFP.
“This hail corridor followed the entire Lando-Gersoise border and it is estimated that between 4 and 5,000 hectares of vines were affected and several tens of thousands of hectares of crops were affected in the Gers”said the president of the Departmental Chamber of Agriculture Bernard Malabirade.
“A Montreal-du-Gers, on a had hailstones bigger than a golf ball!”according to the director of the Armagnac interprofession, Olivier Goujon.
In Frêche (Landes), winemaker Nelly Lacave has regained her 8.5 hectares of vines “chopped”. “In the vineyards, there is nothing left, the roof of our agricultural building is a giant Swiss cheese and in the house, windows have burst. My father, who is almost 70 years old, has never seen that”she named to AFP.
Not far from there, in Labastide-d’Armagnac (Landes), Mayor Alain Gaube thinks he has “lost between 70 and 90% of the vines”. “On the ground, there is a large part of the leaves and the grapes. The grapes that remain (on the vine) are already brown, they are dead”he laments.
If no injuries are to be deplored in the Landes, 4,500 homes have been deprived of electricity.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne promised in the evening that the government would be “there for the affected territories”turning to the “victims of the bad weather that hits the whole country and to the rescue teams who carried out hundreds of interventions”.
In fact, the lightning lit up the sky both in Brittany and in Centre-Val de Loire, Normandy or Ile-de-France. Amateur photographers have posted images of the top of the Eiffel Tower struck by lightning on the networks.
“State services and the means of @SecCivileFrance are mobilized, ready to intervene”tweeted Gérald Darmanin, inviting the population “to follow the advice of the authorities and to remain very vigilant”.
In Vincennes, east of Paris, the We love green music festival had to stop because “the conditions are not pleasant for the public or for the artists”announced a speaker on stage, according to an AFP journalist.
On the National Estate of Chambord (Loir-et-Cher), 30,000 unit scouts from France gathered for the Pentecost weekend had to be sheltered, including a third inside the castle. -same.
“The storm passed around 4:30 p.m. It lasted a few minutes but it was relatively strong and a gust of wind knocked down the Cubs’ tents”explained to AFP Damien Tardy, in charge of press relations for the movement.
“Ten thousand young people, aged 8 to 12, were sheltered in the castle in cooperation with the prefecture”, the oldest “in a sloping plain”, according to him.
Far from this stormy supercell, Corsica has seen the mercury fly away: a heat record for a month of June was recorded in Cap Corsein the north of the island, with 37.4 degrees, according to Météo-France.