Southeastern France has been hit by violent thunderstorms, which caused flash floods on Tuesday (May 20). At least three people have been killed while cars have been swept down the streets as they transformed into rivers.
A couple in their 80s have been killed by floodwaters in a usually picturesque seaside town. Heavy rain on Monday also forced the evacuation of hundreds of passengers aboard a high-speed TGV train in the middle of the night. One official has described the aftermath as being reminiscent of “scenes of war”.
The elderly couple died in the seaside town of Le Lavandou, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, after their vehicle was swept away. The woman’s body remained trapped inside the wreckage, said Toulon public prosecutor Samuel Finielz, reported AFP. According to Infos Francais on X, Part of the town of Lavandou has been “cut off from the world”.
A third woman was killed in the town of Vidauban after her car fell into a ditch on a completely submerged road. She was pulled from her vehicle but could not be saved.
Gil Bernardi, mayor of Le Lavandou, described “scenes of war” with “roads torn up” and “bridges torn down”, reported France24 .
“It was a really violent, vicious, incomprehensible phenomenon,” Bernardi told BFM television. “There is nothing left, no electricity, no drinking water, no sewage treatment plant.
A day earlier, Southwestern France was battered by hailstorms and heavy rain, which flooded roads and damaged railway tracks. Late on Monday, a high-speed TGV train traveling to Paris from Toulouse was forced to evacuate its over 500 passengers after a track became dislodged when the ground subsided due to the torrential rain near the town of Tonneins. They were evacuated by bus.
According to the prefecture, the rescue operation involved dozens of firefighters, policeand volunteers.
“We narrowly avoided a disaster, the tracks were exposed and the TGV was suspended,” the mayor of Tonneins, Dante Rinaudo, told AFP, adding that the storms should be recognized by the government as a natural disaster.
A spokesperson for the state rail operator SNCF said traffic would be suspended for “at least several days” between Agen and Marmande in southwestern France, affecting TGV services between Bordeaux and Toulouse.
