Europe

Home page

Europe

6 dead in France flash floods

16 June 2010 03:54 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Heavy rains have triggered huge flash floods in the mountains above France’s southern Cote d’Azur region on Tuesday, killing six people, APA reports quoting presstv.ir website.

Water levels rose by several meters within a short time, preventing many people from fleeing to higher ground and forcing them to seek shelter on the roofs of their homes.

Three people were killed in the town of Draguignan and a woman in Luc. The other two victims died in Muy and Arcs, the secretary general for the Var region, Olivier de Mazieres, told AFP.

Rescue services were focusing their efforts on helping nearly 900 people trapped in vehicles, houses or on the roofs of their homes, he added.

"ehaven’t seen anything like this in a decade," said the top official for the Var department, Hugues Parant, noting that 180 millimeters (seven inches) of rain had fallen within 12 hours.

The rising water also trapped a high speed train traveling from the southern city of Nice to Lille in the north at Luc with 300 passengers on board.

More than a thousand people were involved in the rescue operations, including hundreds drafted in from other regions.

Some 175,000 homes in the region have lost power.