More than 50,000 lightning strikes were recorded on Saturday June 4 throughout France. Météo-France had placed 65 departments on orange alert on Saturday. “A large part of the territory crossed at the same time by violent storms, it is a first for twenty years”, underlined Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior during a press point organized place Beauvau this Sunday, June 5.
This Sunday morning, the “Storms” vigilance for the 25 departments which remained concerned, mainly located in the north-eastern quarter of France, was lifted. Earlier in the night, the weather forecasting organization had lifted this vigilance for the North, Pas-de-Calais and Seine-et-Marne. In total, more than 3,500 interventions were carried out by 2,400 firefighters involved.
A woman found dead in Rouen
The intense stormy episode left one dead and “15 injured, including two seriously”, announced Gérald Darmanin. The deceased is a woman in her thirties “carried away by a mudslide” in Rouen (Seine-Maritime) and drowned after being stuck under a car. Some streets of the city were indeed transformed into a torrent by the violence of the storms. It can be seen below in images taken by France 3.
Among the two seriously injured is a 13-year-old girl who is “in critical condition”, he detailed, during a press briefing on Place Beauvau. About 15,000 homes are still without power this Sunday. The storms caused damage to the electrical network.
Among the damage caused, Gérald Darmanin mentioned “works of art”, in particular bridges “swept away” in Mayenne, and also wine cultures, in particular in the Landes and Gers.
“Hail larger than a golf ball” in vineyards
Example on part of the Armagnac vineyard, where hailstones of several centimeters fell according to winegrowers and local officials interviewed by AFP. “This hail corridor followed the entire Lando-Gers 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 Bernard Malabirade Departmental Chamber of Agriculture. “In Montreal-du-Gers, we had hailstones bigger than a golf ball!”, According to the director of the Armagnac interprofessional organization, Olivier Goujon.
At Le Frêche (Landes), winemaker Nelly Lacave has found her 8.5 hectares of “chopped” vines. “In the vineyards, there is nothing left, the roof of our agricultural building is a giant Swiss cheese and in the house, windows have broken. My father, who is almost 70 years old, has never seen that”, said- she confided. Not far from there, in Labastide-d’Armagnac (Landes), the mayor Alain Gaube thinks he has “lost between 70 and 90% of (s) 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.
The intense storm that crossed France was a “real disaster” for agriculture, the hail having affected vineyards, cereal crops as well as buildings, said this Sunday the president of the FNSEA, Christiane Lambert. . The bad weather affected vines, “also wheat, barley”, as well as “buildings, completely pierced roofs”, specified the head of the main French agricultural union. “It’s a real disaster.” The damage goes from Brittany to Gers and Landes via Indre-et-Loire or even Allier, she noted.
Sheltering of 30,000 scouts at the Château de Chambord
On the National Estate of Chambord (Loir-et-Cher), 30,000 unit scouts from France gathered for the weekend of Pentecost had to be sheltered, including a third inside the castle himself. “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,” Damien Tardy, in charge of press relations at the Cubs, told AFP. 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.
In Vincennes (Val-de-Marne), east of Paris, the We love green music festival had to be interrupted because “the conditions are not pleasant either for the public or for the artists”, announced a speaker. on the scene.
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. 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.
“The government will be there” promises Elisabeth Borne
Gérald Darmanin announced this Sunday that he would propose “at the end of the week” to Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne to decree “a state of natural disaster” in order to “allow people to trigger their insurance”. The head of government had promised earlier 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” .
Far from this stormy supercell, Corsica saw the mercury soar: a heat record for the month of June was recorded in Cap Corse, in the north of the island, with 37.4 degrees, according to Meteo France.