Bordeaux (AFP)

About 95,000 homes were without electricity Sunday morning, mainly in New Aquitaine after the passage of Fabien storm during the night, while strong winds, floods and surges remained threatening in Corsica.

The power cuts have particularly affected the Gironde department with 23,000 households concerned, said manager of the electricity distribution network Enedis.

The storm did not however cause any injuries or major damage, according to an initial assessment of the emergency services and prefectures after 8:00 am.

In Haute-Corse, Météo France recorded winds of 170 km / h at Bastia and 206 km / h at Cap Sagro. In Corse-du-Sud, the city of Ajaccio has been isolated since Saturday evening after the closure of the flooded airport, then the ban on boat departures and the closure of highways after 9:00 p.m.

Residents are again called there on Sunday not to move by car, to avoid walks by the sea. "With the swell, waves of 6 meters are expected and will cause absolute danger," AFP said. Alain Charrier, secretary general of the prefecture of Corse-du-Sud.

However, the night went "pretty well," he said. "Few interventions took place last night, mainly related to damaged roofs and uprooted trees". He congratulated "the inhabitants who perfectly respected the instructions and did not try to enter or leave Ajaccio".

The episode of Corsica is "a secondary depression, linked to a trough in the Gulf of Genoa, therefore not directly linked to + Fabien +, even if one cannot really dissociate the two", explained to AFP a Météo France forecaster. The end of the phenomenon is scheduled for Monday at midnight.

In the southwest, Fabien, "a strong winter storm" of an intensity "a little more marked" than that of December 13 according to Météo France, had generated in the first part of the night peaks of wind up to 148 km / h at Cap Ferret (Gironde), 142 km / h at Messanges (Landes) on the coast.

Rescue and prefectures have reported multiple interventions for trees or cables on roads, flooded premises, torn roofs. In Bordeaux, where the wind blew up to 141 km / h a collapsed roof caused the evacuation of eight people in a building in the city center.

Sunday morning, no train was running on the Bordeaux-Toulouse axis, due to probable trees obstructing the tracks, announced the SNCF. From 8:30 am, teams had to go on "systematic reconnaissance" and "logging" if necessary. On Bordeaux-Hendaye, traffic will be suspended all day Sunday.

During the night, if the winds have weakened on the coast, they get stronger inland, reaching 102 km / h in Bergerac (Dordogne), 106 km / h in Angoulême (Charente), 113 km / h in Lahas (Gers) .

Sunday at 8:00 am, only two departments remained vigilant orange for strong winds: Haute-Corse and Alpes-Maritimes.

The alert was lifted for Gironde, Landes, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Gers, Hautes-Pyrénées, Ariège, Charente, Dordogne, Haute-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne, Tarn and the Tarn-et-Garonne.

Charente-Maritime, on the other hand, has become alert to orange flooding, for Seugne and Charente downstream.

In the Maritime Alps, Météo France noted peaks between 120 and 130 km / h at the end of the night, before likely strengthening towards the heights of Vence and Grasse in particular. During the afternoon, gusts of 100 to 110 km / h will probably hit the coast from Antibes to Nice.

Corse-du-Sud remains on alert for rain-floods and waves-submersion. Strong surges are expected until Sunday evening on the eastern coast, in the region of Solenzara.

After two violent "Mediterranean episodes" which left 14 dead in a month, Côte d'Azur, Provence and Corsica were hit again on Friday by heavy rain and strong winds. Friday, a man disappeared in the Mediterranean after falling from a sailboat in the Gulf of Fos-sur-Mer.

The Fabien storm is caused by an exacerbated difference between low pressures on the British islands and high pressures off Morocco, which generates the wind, explained to AFP Christelle Robert, forecaster at Météo-France. A type of episode "frequent in winter" and for which climate change "is not involved".

© 2019 AFP