After the heat waves, storms sweep across parts of Europe and cause major damage. In Austria, five people are killed by trees, and there are also fatalities in France and Italy. Elsewhere, the downpours help fight devastating forest fires.
After weeks of drought and severe forest fires, large parts of Europe are increasingly being hit by dangerous storms and thunderstorms. In Austria, five people were killed by fallen trees, including two children. As France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced during a visit to Corsica, six people were killed in the storm on the holiday island, and around 20 more people were injured, according to the authorities. Two people died in a storm in the Italian region of Tuscany.
As the Austrian news agency APA reported, the two children were killed by the fallen trees on Lake St. Andrä in the southern province of Carinthia, and another eleven people were injured there. Furthermore, three people in Gaming in Lower Austria were also killed by a fallen tree. Because of the storms, the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) stopped traffic in Carinthia, East Tyrol and Styria.
During the storms in Corsica, a 13-year-old died when a tree fell on her bungalow at the Le Sagone campsite in the west of the island. A 72-year-old woman was also killed when the blown-off roof of a shack fell on her vehicle, according to authorities. A 46-year-old French tourist died in Calvi when a tree fell on a bungalow. A fisherman and a kayaker also died in the sea off Corsica.
French President Emmanuel Macron pledged support for the island and its residents. A crisis team was formed at Macron’s vacation spot on the Côte d’Azur in the evening, with the participation of Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne. Gusts with a speed of more than 200 kilometers per hour had swept across Corsica. 45,000 households were temporarily without electricity. There were also storms and flooded streets in other parts of France, such as in Marseille.
In Tuscany, according to local media, two people died in the cities of Lucca and Carrara from falling trees. Around a hundred other people had to be brought to safety from the storms, according to the authorities in the region, which is popular with holidaymakers.
There was a severe weather warning for the north of the country to South Tyrol and large parts of central Italy. Some people suffered injuries in the violent storms with more than 100 kilometers per hour and heavy rain, such as at a campsite in Marina di Massa, Tuscany, when trees fell there. Tuscany Regional President Eugenio Giani shared on Twitter a video from the coastal town of Piombino of a Ferris wheel being spun by strong winds.
Other photos showed cars crushed by trees and devastated beaches. In the northern coastal region of Liguria and in Tuscany, which is popular with holidaymakers, the fire brigade counted more than 150 operations by the afternoon. A violent storm also swept through the northern Italian lagoon city of Venice, knocking down umbrellas and tables in the streets. According to Ansa, pieces of the wall broke off the church tower at the famous St. Mark’s Basilica in the center. The civil defense convened a crisis team in the afternoon because of the storms in central and northern Italy.
In other countries, however, the rains were mainly helpful. In Spain, rain helped contain two large wildfires in the south-eastern region of Valencia. “Finally some good news: the rain and the drop in temperature have made it possible to contain the fire in the Vall d’Ebo,” regional president Ximo Puig said on Twitter on Wednesday evening.
In the morning, Puig told radio station Cadena Ser that thanks to the rain, the forest fire in Bejís had “developed positively”. There are only “a few flames visible”. The two fires together destroyed almost 25,000 hectares of land, and around 3,000 people had to leave their homes.
In Portugal, the fire brigade brought the forest fire in the Serra da Estrela nature reserve under control for the time being. However, a representative of civil defense warned on radio station TSF that it is “always possible and very likely that there will be a flare-up, but we hope it does not take on worrying proportions”. The mission in the center of Portugal must therefore be continued for several days. A new heat wave is expected to start in Portugal on Saturday.
Heat and drought also prevail on the other side of the Mediterranean. In Algeria, the flames from more than 20 forest fires spread so rapidly that at least 38 people died and around 200 others were injured, according to authorities and local media. Near the 100,000-inhabitant town of El Tarf, “a fire tornado took everything with it in a few seconds,” a local journalist told the AFP news agency. Most of the fatalities are people who were trapped by flames during their visit to a zoo.
