2023-11-03 22:59:12
– France repairs the damage, Macron calls to remain “vigilant”
The passage of storm Ciaran cost the lives of at least two people in France.
Published: 03.11.2023, 11:59 p.m.
Emmanuel Macron during his trip to Plougastel-Daoulas (Finistère).
AFP
Emmanuel Macron called on the French to “remain extremely vigilant” in the coming days following the passage of storm Ciaran, which claimed the lives of at least two people in France and left damage that will take several days to resolve.
“We have other events happening, which are lighter. We must remain very vigilant because we have structures which remain fragile,” declared the President of the Republic from Brittany. “We have a fight, which is to restore normal life as quickly as possible,” he also said during his trip to Plougastel-Daoulas (Finistère), aiming in particular to restore electricity to 90% of homes. affected by Monday.
An objective which might be complicated by a new depression expected on Saturday evening, called Domingos, indicated Météo-France which expects “a new strong gale on the Atlantic coast”, with “gusts of 120 km/h on the ribs”. Storm Ciaran left serious damage in its wake, particularly to the transport and electricity networks. At 6:00 p.m., 325,000 customers were still without power, mainly in Brittany and Normandy, according to Enedis.
“Natural disaster”
Emmanuel Macron promised a state of “natural disaster” and “agricultural calamity”, “wherever we can do it” and praised the organization of relief, which “made it possible to save many lives”, believing that this event had been “well managed”. “It’s really the fruit of collective learning from the storms of 1999 (which left 92 dead in France), the instruments that we then built, the investments that we made in Météo-France,” a- he pointed out. Brittany was hit by record winds, up to 207 km/h at Pointe du Raz, which tore down trees, roofs and power lines.
At 4:00 p.m. Friday, only Pas-de-Calais remained classified on orange alert, for floods. The Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, who went to a fire station in Caen on Friday morning, reported a “heavy” toll of two deaths and 47 injured in France. A fifty-year-old truck driver was killed by a tree in Aisne and a seventy-year-old suffered a fatal fall following violent winds in Le Havre. A forty-year-old woman also lost her life on Thursday following falling into the water in the Sugiton cove, near Marseille. According to a witness cited by the police, she was swept away by a wave, while Bouches-du-Rhône was placed on orange alert for wave-submersion.
“Considerable damage”
In Europe, at least sixteen victims have been reported, including six in Italy. In Portugal, it was the strong swell caused by Ciaran on the Atlantic Ocean which caused the death of three people in the sinking of a sailboat flying the Danish flag. In Pas-de-Calais, where the Liane and the Hem experienced “exceptional” floods according to the Vigicrues website, villages still had their feet in the water on Friday. In Corsica, many boats were swept onto the docks in Porto, a hamlet on the west coast of the island. In Coutances, in Normandy, the sidewalks of the city center are still littered with slates that have fallen from roofs. “We had prepared, but we didn’t expect that. The damage is considerable,” explained deputy mayor Étienne Savary.
The effects of the storm also continue to disrupt rail transport, particularly in Brittany, Normandy and Hauts-de-France. TGV traffic gradually resumes on Saturday in Brittany, said SNCF, specifying that certain regional lines will not be able to reopen before next week. In Finistère, the situation “impacts the distribution of drinking water for certain municipalities”, distributions of bottled water will therefore be “organized by the municipalities”, indicated the prefecture.
Out of 115 public high schools in Brittany, seven will not be able to reopen on Monday at the end of the school holidays due to damage suffered during the storm, the region said, specifying that some will not reopen until Wednesday. Although they constitute natural phenomena, floods, cyclones and other droughts can be amplified by global warming generated by human activities. Wave-submersion phenomena on the coasts are therefore likely to become more dangerous with the rise in sea level linked to the melting of the ice.
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