Five people died over the weekend when violent storms swept southern France, authorities said Monday, March 11, as rescue services continued their search for missing people, including two children.
On Sunday, a man was found dead in the village of Gagnières, in the Gard department, in his car that had been swept away by floods, authorities said. Also on Sunday, two women died in a separate incident when their car got caught in the raging current of a river.
A fourth confirmed victim, a man whose body was found Monday, is believed to be the father of a family of four who tried to cross a flooded bridge over the river Gardon by car in Dions, near the southern city of Nîmes. His wife was rescued and taken to hospital, but their two children, four and 13 years old, are still missing. Regional authorities said the car's driver appeared to have ignored a warning sign set up at a bridge and tried to cross before police had been able to set up barriers to block access.
"There were probably cases of individual behavior that were not totally appropriate," the secretary-general of the Gard department, Frederic Loiseau, told reporters. Around 110 firefighters and 120 gendarmes have been involved in the search, backed up by helicopters, drones, search dogs and divers.
Seven departments were placed on high weather alert on Saturday, but were out of danger for the most part on Monday. Southern France regularly falls victim to sudden storms. In the worst recent incident, 22 people died in gale-force winds and flooding in 2022.