Six departments are now placed in vigilance orange rain-flood by Météo-France Tuesday. Aveyron, Gard and Tarn join Aude, Herault and Pyrénées-Orientales.

Six departments of southern France and Andorra are placed in vigilance orange rains and floods until Wednesday night, with a peak expected in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, a year after the deadly floods that occurred in the Aude.

Christophe Castaner's call for caution

Faced with this episode, the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, launched Tuesday a call "to the greatest caution and compliance with instructions issued by the prefects and mayors," ensuring, in a statement, "the commitment of all the services of the State, mobilized for the protection of the populations and the goods While the prefectures of the Pyrénées-Orientales and the Aude activated their departmental operational center, and announced the mobilization respectively of 246 and 340 sappers the Civil Security has deployed "as a precaution" a device with 90 firefighters, 70 firefighters and three helicopters.

Aveyron, Gard and Tarn have joined the late afternoon Pyrenees-Orientales, Aude, Herault and the Principality of Andorra, alert since Tuesday morning, according to the report of Météo-France 16 hours. The three coastal departments are also on orange alert for submersion waves. This "marked rainy-stormy Mediterranean episode" requiring special monitoring because of its intensity and duration comes one year after major floods in the Aude, due to an identical phenomenon, having killed 14 people and more than 200 million damage.

Up to 250 mm of rain locally

At the moment, "the rains concern the littoral of the Pyrenees-Orientales, the east of the Aude and the whole of the department of the Hérault, as well as the west of the Gard and the east of the Aveyron ", according to Météo-France. But in the hours to come, thunderstorms will produce "strong accumulations of rain, of the order of 30 to 80 mm in a few hours". "In addition to electrical activity," forecasters also fear "hail falls and very strong gusts of wind." Météo-France estimates the cumulative expected over the entire episode "of the order of 100 to 150 mm generally, locally 200 to 250 mm". These orange alerts are valid until Wednesday, 20 hours.