鈥極ver 100mm rain in an hour鈥�: H茅rault and Gard hit by heavy downpour
The two southern French departments faced torrential rain yesterday leading to flash floods in places 鈥� they remain on storm alert today
H茅rault and Gard were hit with particularly heavy downpours on September 6, leading to flash floods in N卯mes and Montpellier
Gabriela Tulian / Shutterstock
The southern French departments of H茅rault and Gard faced heavy rains yesterday (September 6) where over 150mm of rain fell in just a couple of hours in some parts.
This led to flooding in places, notably Saint-G茅ly-du-Fesc (H茅rault), just north of Montpellier.
Both H茅rault and Gard were briefly placed on red alert for rains and flooding yesterday by M茅t茅o-France, the highest alert level.
Around 135mm of rain fell over N卯mes (Gard) in one hour, while around 70mm fell over Montpellier (H茅rault).
The red alert for H茅rault and Gard has been downgraded to orange and the departments remain on this level this morning. Nine other departments in the south of the country are also on orange storm alert. They are: Ard猫che, Bouches-du-Rh么ne, Dr么me, Is猫re, Loire, Haute-Loire, Rh么ne and Vaucluse.
Read more: South-east France still under storm alerts after unsettled night
The storm that hit H茅rault and Gard yesterday has now moved away and is over the sea.
There were no major injuries in yesterday鈥檚 storms and damage was relatively minor.
The Gard emergency services carried out "fifteen safety operations'', which involved providing shelter for stranded motorists. The fire brigade also carried out around fifty minor interventions in the vicinity of N卯mes, such as recovering drain covers carried away by water.
In Montpellier, the river Lez burst its banks.
In total, some 250 firefighters were deployed in the east of H茅rault, including ten units of water rescue specialists, the prefecture stated.
A 鈥榗arpet of snow鈥� in Ni猫vre town
The commune of Imphy in Ni猫vre found its streets covered in snow after this week鈥檚 storms.
A 15-minute episode of rain, hail and wind left up to 20cm of icy residue on the ground, and damaged several buildings.
At the local swimming pool, a section of the roof collapsed completely under the weight of the hailstones. When the storm began, there were still swimmers using the pool, but they were evacuated before the roof fell in.
The post office, nursery school and several other businesses found that their basements had been flooded and some of their stock destroyed, and damage was also done to some residential roofs.
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