PNearly 900 people were evacuated by emergency services on Thursday in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, where four departments are on red alert for flooding or high water, announced the regional prefecture.
This point, established at 4:00 p.m., includes in particular 180 residents of a district of Givors, in the Rhône, where a dike threatens to give way, specified the prefecture which underlines on the other hand the absence of injuries recorded at this stage.
The French Minister for Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher on Thursday described the episode of torrential rains which hit certain areas of Ardèche as “absolutely massive” and spoke of an “unprecedented situation”.
Ardèche affected
“We are facing a situation that is unprecedented in its scale. 600 millimeters of water on the Ardèche is unheard of in living memory,” the minister said during a press briefing. “600 millimeters is more than 60 centimeters of water that fell in 48 hours. It’s absolutely massive. »
Ardèche, like the Rhône, Haute-Loire, Loire, Lozère and Alpes-Maritimes, have been placed on red alert for floods or floods by Météo-France.
According to the minister, the south of France is facing “three different meteorological episodes: a Cévennes episode in the Ardèche, a Mediterranean episode in the Alpes-Maritimes and a depression which is moving up from the Pyrénées-Atlantiques towards the north and which could reach Île-de-France in the evening.
“Due to this depression”, Météo-France will put “nine additional departments and Paris in the inner suburbs on orange alert at 4:00 p.m.”, she added.
Call for caution
The minister called for “caution and respect for the instructions of the emergency services”. “We observe kinetics which can change very quickly and watercourses which seemed to be calm, which suddenly change and swell with water with risks for you,” explained the minister.
“I also invite, and this is a message from the Ardèche prefecture, to wait until the emergency services invite you to do so to pick up your children from schools,” she added, affirming that they were “safe”.
Agnès Pannier-Runacher also promised to “monitor the situation hour by hour” and that “rapid decisions for declarations and recognition of natural disasters” will be taken.
Also read
Impressive floods in France, six departments on red alert (photos)
