Fiona will have caused a lot of damage during her visit to Guadeloupe on the night of Friday to Saturday, where she left flooded neighborhoods and devastated houses.

In places, the water rose more than 1.5 meters.

On the territory of the commune of Basse-Terre, a man died, carried away with his house by the waves of a river in flood.

It is the south of the homonymous island of Basse-Terre, southwestern part of the archipelago, which has been the most affected.

In this same town, Stella Lelong, 48, saw water entering her house in the middle of the night.

"In one hour, we found ourselves with 80 cm of water inside (...) We lost everything, everything on the ground floor is lost", she testified .

Its interior "recovered communal trash cans and debris from the river".

The lack of water is felt, the distribution of drinking water having been cut off in many places.

Only eight of the 26 factories operated by the joint water management union (SMGEAG) could again treat it on Sunday at midday, this establishment said in a press release.

Some 5,000 EDF customers remained without electricity on Sunday at 12 p.m. local time (6 p.m. in Paris), but the operator planned to resupply at least half of them during the day.

Here too, the south of Basse-Terre is the most affected area, specifies EDF.

Meteorological vigilance returned to yellow level on Sunday for "heavy rains and thunderstorms", after 24 hours of red vigilance.

In its bulletin, the meteorological center of Guadeloupe described as "very impressive" the accumulations of rain measured since the beginning of the episode, in the night from Friday to Saturday, such as "534 mm in St-Claude (Matouba)" or the "502 mm at Capesterre Belle-Eau (Neufchâteau)".

The equivalent of several months of precipitation.

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Upcoming visit of the Minister Delegate

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced that the state of natural disaster would be recognized "end of next week" in Guadeloupe.

In this archipelago of the Lesser Antilles very concerned by climate change, the state of natural disaster had already been recognized in May for several municipalities affected at the end of April by floods which had killed one person.

In addition to the state of natural disaster, a state guarantee to compensate the victims, "the relief fund for the overseas territories", which aims to compensate the uninsurable property of the victims, will be "mobilised", has for his part indicated on Twitter President Emmanuel Macron.

"My thoughts go out to Guadeloupe, to our compatriot carried away and all the inhabitants affected," said the head of state who asked the minister in charge of overseas territories, Jean-François Carenco, to go there.

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The date has not yet been set but Mr. Carenco should make this visit next week, his entourage told AFP.

The sixth tropical system of the season in the Atlantic, storm Fiona strengthened into a hurricane on Sunday as it approached Puerto Rico, carrying winds blowing up to 130 km / h, announced the American Hurricane Center.

US President Joe Biden on Sunday approved Puerto Rico's declaration of a state of emergency, a measure that frees up federal funds for relief.

More than 450,000 homes were without power in the American territory of the Caribbean on Sunday morning, according to the specialized site poweroutage.us.

With the warming of the surface of the oceans, the frequency of the most intense hurricanes, with more violent winds and more important precipitations, increases.

In particular, they pose an increasing risk to coastal communities.

© 2022 AFP