The aftermath of a deadly storm continued to disrupt parts of France on Sunday, with flooding concerns persisting in the southwest even as the flood alert agency said it had been working around the clock for the past 30 days to deal with the situation.
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Amid a series of incessant rains and winter storms, France has been under an orange or red alert for 30 days, the latest data from weather service Météo-France shows.
“For 30 days we have been in continuous orange or red alert somewhere on the national territory,” Lucie Chadourne-Facon, director of Vigicrues, told local media on Saturday.
“That is 81 departments in alert simultaneously for 154 rivers, so we have exceeded all our records,” she said. ‘
The waters have flooded roads and houses after the Garonne River burst its banks in southwestern France, with soil moisture levels breaking records since records began in 1959.
“We are facing a generalised flood situation across the entire country because all the soils are saturated everywhere” and have “lost their infiltration capacity,” she said.
Last week, government spokesperson Maud Bregeon told local media that France had recorded two deaths linked to Storm Nils: one on Thursday in the Landes department and a second “in the last hours” in Tarn-et-Garonne, Bregeon said on Friday.
Meanwhile, days after Storm Nils, Oriana hit Spain over the weekend with torrential rain and strong winds, disrupting trains and public transport.
With powerful gusts of up to 166 km/h, Storm Oriana tore through eastern, northern, and southern Spain.
Local officials reported disruption to transport across the Basque Coast, Valencia, Mallorca, Andalusia and Barcelona in Catalonia, and emergency services carried out the evacuation of more than 3,000 people.
Images captured on social media showed trees falling under strong winds and emergency personnel responding throughout impacted areas.
Authorities issued a red alert in the province of Castellón as “hurricane-force” winds swept through the region.
The storms have so far killed three people in France and Spain and left dozens more injured in the extreme-weather-related accidents.
Additional sources • AP, AFP
