FRENCH FLOODS BEGIN TO SUBSIDE

[tropicana]

December 04, 2003

French floods begin to subside
BY AFP IN MARSEILLES



Thousands of people began returning to their homes in Marseilles Wednesday after a weather alert prompted by some of the worst storms in France in living memory was lifted.

Many had spent the night in temporary shelters after torrential rain and winds gusting up to 150km/h (90mph) lashed the south of France, killing at least five people.

Yet as the clean-up operation began in earnest, more than a quarter of a million people remained without adequate drinking water after supplies were contaminated by the floods.

Rivers also remained dangerously high, while road and rail travel was disrupted across a region stretching from the Pyrenées mountains to the Italian border.

The French Government responded quickly to the mounting emergency in the south, having been stung by heavy criticism that it failed to react quickly enough to the summer's deadly heat waves.

President Jacques Chirac flew to the region Tuesday and has already promised €12 million (£8.4m) for disaster relief.

Yet the government still faces anger over its urban planning policies, which critics say have aggravated the effects of flash-flooding.

Questions will also be asked over whether more should be done to slow down climate change – which is blamed by many for the apparent increase in extreme weather in France.

In the Gard region around the city of Nimes Wednesday, more than a quarter of a million people were told not to drink tap water because or potential contamination.

Local authorities issued new warnings for residents to stay at home, and school was cancelled in the Gard and Herault regions, which lie on either side of the river Rhône.

Firefighters in Herault rescued two people from a tree, which they climbed to escape floodwaters after venturing out near the town of Valras. "As the firefighters are charming folks, they even rescued a horse," the local government office added.

Officials said that the Rhône had reached levels not seen since the 19th century, with a flow measured at 13,000 cubic metres per second during the night. However they added that river levels across the region were beginning to fall today.

Road and rail traffic remained severely disrupted however, with many routes submerged, and the reactors at four nuclear power plants were shut down because of floating debris in the river that threatened to clog cooling inlets.

Tug-boats were called in to control the decommissioned aircraft-carrier Clemenceau Tuesday, which broke its moorings in the Mediterranean while waiting to be brought to port to be broken up.

-justin-