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Floods, 200km/h winds and wildfires as Storm Ciara batters France

The Local France
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Floods, 200km/h winds and wildfires as Storm Ciara batters France
Wildfires in Corsica. Photo: AFP

Storm Ciara continued to batter France overnight with localised flooding, 200 km/h winds and wildfires.

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Although the winds were dying out on Tuesday morning, emergency services have cautioned people to stay away from risky situations as crews continue to battle with the after-effects of the storm.

French weather forecaster Météo France kept 12 départements on orange alert for strong winds and flood risk on Tuesday.

Corsica was the worst hit area as wind gusts sweeping over the island reached a speed of more than 200 km/h overnight.

On Tuesday morning, firefighters in two different parts of the island were trying to extinguish fires that had broken out overnight. 

 

The wildfires ravaging the Cap-Corse had destroyed 90 hectares of forest, according to France Bleu.

Although the situation was predicted to be better in most parts of the country on Tuesday, authorities cautioned their inhabitants to stay safe and keep clear of high-risk areas, like roads that could be prone to flooding.

In Seine-Maritime the authorities urged inhabitants to  keep clear of the Seine riverbank "despite temporary improvements," as the situation "would get worse again." 

 

On Monday the storm had caused severe disruption to the SNCF train traffic, but the national rail company said in the evening traffic would run smoothly on Tuesday except for "some isolated difficulties.

 

In Paris although the Metro was running largely as normal traffic on both the suburban RER services and the greater Paris Transilien network was badly disrupted and overnight several RER lines stopped running altogether due to the weather conditions.

 

 

The storm had 40 flights cancelled from Paris' two airports Charles-de-Gaulle and Orly, but no delays were expected on Tuesday, according to French news channel BFMTV.

On Monday, trees and electricity poles were blown over and roofs ripped off homes across 31 départments, fire and rescue services said.130,000 homes were without electricity on Monday morning, according to the electricity network company Enedis. 

The regions most affected by the power cuts were Brittany, Normandy, Hauts-de-France, the Grand Est and the greater Paris Île-de-France region. 

 

Paris firefighters said they had received a "large number of calls" and appealed to people to limit their movements as far as possible and secure all belongings.

The storm was expected to weaken in intensity on Tuesday afternoon. 

 

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