A man was found dead in his vehicle in Guadeloupe, in a flooded district of the town of Abymes, after the exceptional rainfall that hit the island overnight from Friday to Saturday, noted an AFP correspondent.
The car, submerged for several hours in a pond due to the rising waters, was taken out of the water.
The emergency services, dispatched to the scene, were unable to revive the victim.
In total, the firefighters intervened about forty times during the night.
red vigilance
The island, which went into red alert for heavy rain and thunderstorms around 4 a.m. (10 a.m. in mainland France), suffered torrential rainfall all night at "probably record" levels, according to the prefecture, which advises "to avoid all displacement" on the axes most affected by floods.
"The calm is emerging," said Météo-France at the start of the morning.
In the middle of the morning, as the flood had begun, many roads remained cut off from traffic, including on the main axes, forcing some motorists to turn around and drive in the opposite direction on expressways.
Some areas still flooded
Some areas remained largely flooded, notably the Grands Fonds region, in the center of Grande-Terre.
Certain areas of the communes of Pointe-à-Pitre and Le Gosier are deprived of electricity, EDF said in a press release published on social networks.
Almost everywhere in the areas affected by the floods, cars drowned during the night by the rising waters were waiting for the tow trucks, and many debris from cars (license plates, mudguards, etc.) littered the roads, a found an AFP correspondent.
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