"Will we be able to recover from this?" : in Tende, bad weather ravaged everything

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To reach Tende, you have to follow a road strewn with debris and branches.

It has disappeared in places, cut clean, the macadam twisted like after an earthquake.

We then take the railway, walking 25 kilometers along the ballast.

Tende is one of the three villages of the Roya valley still cut off from the world, four days after the bad weather that hit the Alpes-Maritimes. 

In the heart of this town of 2,200 inhabitants, the two bridges collapsed, explains Philippe.

"There was even a house right on the edge, which had been redone a few years ago. There is nothing left."

At the location of the two tennis courts, only two long white lines can be seen.

The rest disappeared under the water.

"The riverbed is normally 10 meters wide. There it is more like 50."

150 graves washed away

Because of the floods, the bodies of some 150 people buried in the village cemetery were washed away and are gradually being found downstream of the town, the village mayor, Jean-Pierre Vassallo, told AFP.

"They left for 20 km and ended up everywhere, sometimes in gardens. It is the inhabitants who warn us, so that the marine firefighters of Marseille on the spot come to recover them".

These bodies are gradually gathered in a room in the town, explained Jean-Pierre Vassallo, without being able to specify how many have already been found. 

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"Will we be able to recover from this?"

The priority for residents is now to restore water, electricity and roads.

For the rest, impossible to project.

"We feel a lot of sadness. It's a disaster. Will we be able to get over it? I don't know. It's too early to know."

For three days, the noise of helicopters has been the rhythm of the days of the inhabitants of the valley.

They supply isolated communities with drinking water and food.

And evacuate those who so wish to areas spared by the disaster.