Violent thunderstorms struck a large part of France on Wednesday evening. According to the Keraunos observatory, nearly 17,000 lightning impacts have been noted. Rain and gusts of wind – sometimes recorded up to more than 100 km/h overnight – have caused significant material damage. In all, the firefighters carried out 2,500 interventions in France on the night of Wednesday to Thursday.
Crushed pylons
In Loir-et-Cher, east of Blois, several electric pylons collapsed, as crushed under the power of the wind.
Thursday morning, 100,000 households remained deprived of electricity according to Enedis. Among them 27,000 households in Auvergne and 27,000 others in the north of Midi-Pyrénées, but also 12,000 in Center-Val de Loire, 10,500 in Burgundy and some 10,000 Limousin households, said the network manager.
In Eure, the Valailles church was simply ripped out after the bell tower, which did not resist the gusts, collapsed. A few dozen kilometers, in the same department, the roof of the Herqueville village hall was heavily damaged.
Big damage in Paris, water leak in the assembly
Less serious, many vehicles have been affected by falls of trees. In Paris, around forty of them collapsed and many others have been damaged, making roads impracticable. The firefighters were still hard at work on Thursday to clear the streets. The capital’s parks and gardens will remain closed this Thursday.
Without forgetting the Paris metro, where stations were flooded on Wednesday evening.
The damage touched to the National Assembly, where a session was interrupted Thursday evening due to the rain that fell into the hemicycle. According to images broadcast by deputy Alexis Corbière, the canopy of the Palais Bourbon was also damaged.
In the southwest, it is mainly hail, with hailstones reaching several centimeters in diameter, which caused damage.
Dead and injured
The human balance sheet of bad weather is also very heavy. Two people were killed, including a teenager near Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne) and a man in Mayenne. Seventeen were also injured, including one seriously, according to the latest civil security report communicated this Thursday morning. All the vigilances have now been lifted. This parenthesis of bad weather gives way in the coming days to a new episode of hot weather.
