New "widespread thunderstorms" hit Corsica overnight from Thursday to Friday, the day after a particularly violent stormy episode that killed five people.

These "widespread thunderstorms" concern "the western half of Corsica and Cap Corse" but also "the eastern coast", announced Météo-France in a bulletin broadcast overnight, specifying that "thunderstorms continue to form at sea and will affect a large part of the western facade of Corsica" during the night.

"Under the strongest storm cells, we can observe 40 to 60 mm in less than an hour, hail, strong gusts of wind close to 80 to 100 km / h", according to Météo-France which also warns against "waterspouts and whirlwind phenomena" on the coast.

The Mediterranean island, where the tourist season is in full swing, went back to orange vigilance Thursday at 9 p.m., for a rainy-stormy episode "more durable" than the day before.

Campsites evacuated

Thursday morning, very brutal thunderstorms killed five people across the Isle of Beauty, including two at sea, a 62-year-old fisherman and a kayaker in her sixties.

This report was confirmed Thursday evening to AFP by the Ministry of the Interior, the maritime prefecture and the two Corsican prefectures, after a sixth death was announced by mistake by the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin since the Corsica, based on misleading information from firefighters.

Thursday evening, several campsites in Corse-du-Sud were evacuated in anticipation of new storms, during which "high rainfall intensities" are expected, according to Météo-France.

But the gusts of wind "will be much less violent than those observed Thursday morning", measured at more than 200 km / h.

In Haute-Corse, 5,400 people "accommodated in the most exposed campsites (Calvi, Calenzana, Aregno, Algajola, Corbara and Monticello) have been brought to safety", detailed the prefecture in a press release.

"Rehousing operations are underway" for the evacuees, Gilles Simeoni, President of the Executive Council of Corsica, had indicated earlier, alongside Gérald Darmanin in the Sagone campsite (Corse-du-Sud) where a teenager from 13 year old lost his life after a tree fell on his bungalow.

Call for caution

The other victims are a 46-year-old man, also victim of a falling tree on a campsite in Calvi (Haute-Corse), and a septuagenarian, killed a few kilometers from the Sagone campsite by the fall of the roof of a straw hut on his vehicle.

During his visit to Sagone, Gérald Darmanin announced that a state of natural disaster could be declared as early as Wednesday.

In Ajaccio, the minister then took part by videoconference in the first meeting of the interministerial crisis unit, chaired by Emmanuel Macron from Fort Brégançon (Var).

"Tonight, stay careful," tweeted the head of state on Thursday evening, once again expressing his "support and that of the Nation for the Corsicans who have been hard hit".

"Exceptional situation"

Conceding to have been "surprised" by an "exceptional" and "difficult to predict" situation by its digital models, Météo-France defended itself from not having activated its orange vigilance in advance on Thursday morning.

The winds which hit the island were "extremely violent" and they were "unexpected, in any case unexpected in this intensity", estimated for his part Gérald Darmanin, qualifying this phenomenon as "without doubt exceptional".

A total of 20 other people were injured on the island, four of them seriously, said the Minister of the Interior.

Among them, a 23-year-old Italian woman, also a victim of a falling tree in the Calvi pine forest, is "still in absolute emergency", according to the prefecture.

According to a press release from the maritime prefecture, 125 rescue operations at sea were carried out in Corsica on Thursday, most of them for "ships in difficulty".

With AFP

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