A total of 186 communes of six departments of the south of France hit by violent storms of 22 and 23 October were recognized in a state of natural disaster, according to a decree published Thursday in the Official Journal. Recognition that "may entitle the insured to the effects of natural disasters on property".
Nearly a hundred of these municipalities are in the Hérault and forty in the Aude. The others are located in the Bouches-du-Rhône (23 communes), the Pyrénées-Orientales (5), the Var (20) and one in the Vaucluse. This recognition will trigger exceptional compensation for the victims of these bad weather, which led to floods and mudslides.
Floods and mudslides
The interior minister Christophe Castaner had wished October 24 "that the procedure of recognition of the state of natural disaster for the municipalities concerned is accelerated". The minister had then reported three deaths related to this episode of violent rains, including a woman found inanimate in vineyards in the Hérault after leaving her home. Regarding the other two deaths, identified in the Gard and Pyrénées-Orientales, local prefectures had however told AFP that the link with the weather was not established.
These storms, which "simultaneously impacted up to eight departments", had resulted in 1,773 relief interventions and mobilized more than 2,000 firefighters and civil security forces, the minister said. Many railroad tracks have also been damaged. The SNCF has been forced to stop the train traffic between Montpellier and Toulouse and Montpellier and Spain, at least until the end of the holiday of All Saints on 4 November.