Rapid floods, material damage and tragedy: three elderly people died on Saturday evening, crushed by a tree in their car in Rosnay-l’Hôpital (Aube), during violent storms that occurred from the southwest to the northwest. eastern France on Saturday.
These three people were “septuagenarians and octogenarians”as well as a fourth passenger still in absolute emergency, the prefecture specifies. The accident “occurred during a very strong gust of wind, between 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.”
According to a source at the gendarmerie, a first tree fell on the road which forced the car to stop, then a second tree fell, this time on the car.
Aube was placed on Saturday evening, like more than twenty other departments, on orange alert for storms by Météo-France. This was lifted, for Aube as for the other departments, during the night from Saturday to Sunday.
With the exception of this accident, the department has only suffered material damage, “interventions for blown away roof sections, flooded garages and basements”indicates the prefecture.
The north of the neighbouring department of Haute-Marne has been hit by rising water levels “very fast, in a quarter of an hour”which caused mudslides and notably trapped the residents of a campsite, the prefect, Régine Pam, told AFP.
Hailstones
An emergency shelter was opened in a gymnasium in Joinville, a few kilometres west of the disaster areas, and the Red Cross was able to accommodate 70 victims there, she added. Three hundred firefighters took part in the interventions in the department, including reinforcements from the Ardennes and the Marne, and only two minor injuries were reported.
According to Enedis, 1,300 homes were without electricity in Aube at the end of the morning, and a few in Haute-Marne. At the same time, 2,000 customers remained without power in the former Lorraine region, after a peak of 10,000 customers without power on Saturday.
TER traffic was also interrupted on Saturday evening from 7 p.m. on all lines, except Strasbourg and Basel, Metz, Nancy, Mulhouse and Belfort, according to SNCF.
Gusts
Earlier on Saturday, torrential storms hit the Tarn department, “where 61 mm were recorded in one hour in Dourgne, 56 mm in one hour in Montredon and 66.6 mm in three hours in the same place. In Castres, gusts of 87 km/h were recorded,” Météo-France reported.
In the Grand Est region, this vigilance forced the cancellation of several festive events on Saturday. The passage of the flame in the Meuse was able to take place, but the last relay passages had to be brought forward to escape the storms, which locally resulted in nearly 60 mm of precipitation in a few hours and large hailstones in the department. , according to the weather services.
Thunderstorms also hit countries bordering France on Saturday. Two people died and a third is missing after a landslide triggered by torrential rain in southeastern Switzerland, police in the canton of Ticino said on Sunday.
In Germany, the Germany-Denmark Euro 2024 football match, which was played on Saturday evening in Dortmund, had to be interrupted for 25 minutes due to a violent storm.
In northern Italy, the Aosta Valley has also been affected and Internet users have shared spectacular images of flooding and muddy rivers rushing furiously down the mountain.
