Mudslides sweeping down the street. Tuesday evening, storms hit several towns in the Somme. The Albert sector, east of Amiens, was particularly affected. Météo France had indeed announced potentially “intense” storms and had placed the department on yellow alert (2 out of 4) for rain-floods.
In Morlancourt and Sailly-Laurette, the water rose up to a meter high in the streets, washing away doors and windows in their path, according to Le Courrier Picard.
In Sailly-Laurette, three cars parked in the street were also swept away by the water. “It rained between approximately 8 p.m. and 8:45 p.m., it was a torrent, there is no other word. There was more than a meter of water, the water rushing down, tearing up everything in its path,” a resident of the town told France Bleu. Residents whose homes were flooded were accommodated in the village hall.
South of Amiens, in the Sains-en-Amiens area, eight houses were flooded, the prefecture reported on the radio. Several dozen firefighters were mobilized in the evening. No casualties have yet been reported. This Wednesday, traffic on the RD 42 between Lamotte-Warfusée and Sailly-Laurette was cut off, according to France Bleu.
These mudslides were caused by storms causing sudden precipitation. “Significant waves of water”, often between 30 and 50 mm fell, sometimes more than 40 mm in an hour, notes the French storm observatory Keraunos on its X account (formerly Twitter). That is the equivalent of almost a month of rain in a few hours for a “normal” month of May, according to his calculations.
This Wednesday, Météo France forecasts light showers from the southwest to the northwest of the country. They could be accompanied by sustained thunderstorms in places, but the instability should be less marked than in previous days.
