France: the search for the missing continues, families separated by cut roads
Audio 01:00
A car stuck in the mud after the Vésubie river floods in Roquebillière, south-eastern France, October 3, 2020. NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP
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5 mins
Nearly 1,000 firefighters are mobilized this Sunday in the Alpes-Maritimes hit by exceptional floods, to restore communication routes and search for at least eight missing people, according to the latest official report.
Many families are geographically separated, because those who were working in Nice on Saturday did not have time to return home before the roads closed.
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With our special
correspondent in Saint-Martin-du-Var,
Stéphane Burgatt
Impatience and concern for Thierry, stuck in the valley.
He lives in altitude and has no news from his family.
“
Looks like an antenna on the telephone network must have fallen.
I still have no news, whether over the Internet or over the telephone network, nothing is coming through, so I don't know.
Mainly, I have three children, a wife ... How can we do that?
I wait.
"
A wait that could last because the roads are heavily damaged, or even destroyed in places.
We can also observe a ballet of heavy goods vehicles, exceptional convoys which transport construction machinery.
Out of spite, some like David make a very big detour to return home.
"
I put the GPS: I have three and a half hours, four hours of road to make the grand tour,
we
he explains.
Normally, I'm there in a quarter of an hour.
The gendarmes said that today it is dead.
If I want to go back and see my wife and children, and see the damage that has been done, that's the only way.
"
This young man is launched on a long and rather hazardous journey since he is not even certain to reach his village by taking this new extended route.
Two dead and 21 people rescued
In Italy, two people, including a firefighter, were found dead in flooding on the border with France.
Saturday evening, 21 people who were reported missing by the Italian authorities were rescued on the French side of the Alps, near Tende, in the hinterland of Nice.
In the morning, a missing French gendarme was also found safe and sound.
According to the authorities' latest report, eight people are still missing in France, in the Roya Valley and in the Vésubie, since the night of Friday to Saturday, and a dozen others are "
wanted
", that is. that is to say that "
we have no news [from them]
" Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Saturday evening, who went to Nice.
Entire villages cut off from the world
The army and hundreds of rescuers are deployed on the French side to search for the missing and bring medical supplies and water to isolated residents by helicopter.
"
Research continues of course, with reconnaissance of isolated places
" to which firefighters did not yet have access on Sunday morning, firefighters in the Alpes-Maritimes told AFP.
“
We must re-establish the lines of communication to allow emergency access
,” they added.
600 firefighters from the Alpes-Maritimes remain hard at work, as well as the 300 or so staff who came to reinforce other departments as of Friday evening.
The floods, "
exceptional
" according to Météo France, devastated villages in the Vésubie valley and the Roya valley, where houses were washed away by the waves, while others are in danger, perched above. above the void.
Many roads and bridges are still cut off Sunday, and as a result entire villages are isolated from the world.
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To read also: France: several missing after the floods caused by storm Alex
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