Villages "under 30 to 40 cm of water" in the southwest

Météo-France maintained, this Monday evening, orange vigilance in two departments of the Southwest after an episode of rain and thunderstorms which particularly affected the Landes and the Gironde, where the firefighters intervened hundreds of times without however lament victims.

At 10 p.m., the Landes, where around forty roads are cut to traffic, as well as the Tarn, where the alert for the rains was lifted in the evening, were still on the alert orange floods, especially during the Agout and Adour. The Landes, as well as the neighboring Gironde, had been placed on maximum alert during the night of Sunday to Monday due to exceptional precipitation. In Belin-Béliet, on the border of the two departments, it fell in less than 36 hours the equivalent of 56 days of rain (136 mm), according to Météo-France.

🔶 2 dpts en #vigilanceOrange

Stay informed on https://t.co/rJ24zzmmy4 pic.twitter.com/Js9QNNb3iX

A slightly injured gendarme

More than the violence of the precipitation, it is their duration and their geographical extension which made the exceptional character of this rainy event which started on Sunday morning. "The quantities forecast in 24/48 hours could thus be close to the centennial values ​​in places," said the meteorological service.

In the Southwest, the rainy episode weakened Monday afternoon but moderate and not very mobile rains were observed in the evening in the Tarn. The other rainy axis, which stretched from Vendée to the North-East of the country via the Center and Burgundy, has clearly weakened, with still light rains over the Vosges and Haute-Saône.

In the Landes, where firefighters have carried out more than 130 interventions since Sunday, a gendarme was slightly injured following the collapse of a road in Argelouse. In Gironde, firefighters carried out more than 500 interventions, and around twenty roads are still blocked this Tuesday morning. Some 46 people were put in safety because of the rising waters, said the prefecture.

"We thought we would only see this on TV, not here"

In the south of this department, the village of Origne found itself "under 30 to 40 cm of water, never seen before," said Mayor Vincent Dedieu. We started with a storm of very large hailstones then two hours of very heavy non-stop rain. It was not the streams that overflowed, it was the abundance of water that poured into the village. We thought we'd only see it on TV, not here. "

[DIRECT] #Floods: the Belin-Béliet sector, in south- # Gironde, is one of the most affected with 120 mm of # rain since yesterday. Many runoffs & accumulations of water. The #Landes department will leave #VigilanceRouge at 12 noon (photo S. Goïcoechéa) @LCI pic.twitter.com/h4cH0odsCl

It fell 106.1 mm at Belin-Béliet. A first in 140 years. The banks of streams are abused by a very high flow. Here, below the village of Belin. The streets are flooded, houses too. Video: Le Belinétois. @GirondeMeteo @SO_Bordeaux @KeraunosObs pic.twitter.com/O163pdWWo1

In Aude, hit hard by deadly thunderstorms in October 2018 (14 dead), the rise in the level of several rivers led to evacuations. In Cenne-Monestiès, between 30 and 50 people living along the Lampy had to be sheltered, according to mayor Jean-Louis Pouytès. “A dam upstream of the town is weakened by works. With the rising waters, it is subject to an unthinkable pressure, "he said.

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Not far away, in Pezens, a hundred people were also evacuated because of the Flesquel rating, according to mayor Philippe Fau. In Trèbes, where 6 people had died in the 2018 floods, vigilance is required even if the flooding of the Aude, whose peak expected around 9:00 p.m. should reach 3.50 m, should not have any effect on the population, ”explained Mayor Eric Ménassi.

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