Hailstones the size of golf balls, destroyed vineyards, riddled house roofs: violent storms are raging in France. A person is killed in a flash flood. In the center of the country, tens of thousands of boy scouts have to be evacuated. Meanwhile, Corsica is experiencing record heat.
At least one person has died in storms across much of France. As the city administration in Rouen, northern France announced, a woman fell under a car in a flash flood caused by a storm and died. In the southern Landes and Gers departments, hailstones larger than golf balls caused damage to vineyards, officials and winegrowers said.
Tens of thousands of hectares of land were affected by the damage caused by the hailstorm, said the head of the Gers agricultural authority, Bernard Malabirade. The winemaker Nelly Lacave in the Landes department told the AFP news agency: “There is nothing left in the vineyards, the roof of our farm building looks like a Swiss cheese and the windows on the house were broken.”
The electricity supplier Enedis announced that around 5,000 households across the country were cut off from the power supply because of the storm. In the Loir-et-Cher department in the center of the country, around 30,000 scouts who had gathered there for Pentecost camping had to be rushed to safety. Ten thousand children between the ages of eight and 12 were accommodated at the local castle, Scout spokesman Damien Tardy said.
Corsica, meanwhile, was hit by record heat. 37.4 degrees were measured in the north of the holiday island, according to the weather service France-Météo. This is a new high for the month of June. The weather service predicted more storms for France, moving northwards and eastwards through the country from the south-west.
