Saône-et-Loire joins Côte-d’Or and Yonne in purple vigilance | EUROtoday

The threat of flooding stays excessive. Saône-et-Loire handed on the night of Monday 1^er April on purple alert for floods, becoming a member of Côte-d'Or and Yonne, whereas the heavy rain of current days has prompted rivers to swell and prompted “exceptional floods”.

“Rainy episodes have been occurring one after the other in the country for several days” on “grounds that are already very wet,” remembers the Vigicrues website in its 10 p.m. bulletin. “As a result, exceptional floods are observed on the Armançon and the Serein (Yonne and Côte-d’Or), as well as on the Arroux (Saône-et-Loire),” continues Vigicrues.

Concerning the Armançon, the decline has began in Côte-d'Or, however the rise in waters ought to proceed in the course of the evening from Monday to Tuesday within the Yonne, downstream of this river.

“Since the beginning of the afternoon, the Armançon basin has been in decline, allowing an improvement in the situation in Semur-en-Auxois, Venarey-Les-Laumes and Montbard as well as all the surrounding municipalities,” signifies the Côte-d’Or prefecture Monday night.

“The flood arrived too suddenly” Monday round 9:30 a.m., the mayor of Aisy-sur-Armançon (Yonne), Olivier Murat, instructed AFP. Roads have been reduce, round twenty folks evacuated, he stated.

The water rose to 2.89 meters on this city between 4:30 p.m. and 6:40 p.m., in accordance with the Vigicrues web site. This ought to mark its peak, in accordance with the prefecture. The final document recorded in Aisy-sur-Armençon dates again to May 4, 2013, at 2.45 m.

However, the alert has not been lifted. “The flood wave on the Armançon moves in the evening and all night downstream from Aisy-sur-Armançon (notably the communes up to Tonnerre),” warns the Yonne prefecture.

Nearly 300 properties have been affected by preventive energy cuts, which could possibly be prolonged relying on the evolution of the scenario, in accordance with the prefecture.

Precipitation additionally continues to swell one other river, the Ouche, which borders Dijon. This enhance “will continue throughout the night and until early tomorrow morning”, warns the Côte d'Or prefecture, with ranges reaching as much as 3.20 meters within the metropolitan space.

“We were surprised by the intensity”

Indre-et-Loire, which had been on purple alert since Saturday, returned to orange on Monday afternoon because of a decline within the Vienne.

In this division, 562 folks have been evacuated this weekend. All are known as to return residence and “it now remains to assess the damage”, indicated the sub-prefect of Indre-et-Loire, Guillaume Saint-Cricq, throughout a press convention.

“We were surprised by the intensity of the phenomenon. We didn't expect it. (…) It happened very quickly,” he admitted, praising the “strong resilience of the residents”: they “are used to living with the river and rivers, we have had few calls” for emergency assist, he defined.

In addition to people, “we also evacuated animals, bulls, horses and cows, an animal park”, indicated the sub-prefect.

In a number of streets of Chinon, residents tried to barricade their properties with concrete blocks, tarpaulins and even stones.

If “the damage is difficult to estimate”, providers in “drinking water, sanitation, telephony have been maintained”, in addition to electrical energy, welcomes Jean-Luc Dupont, the mayor of Chinon.

Kayaker nonetheless lacking

In Haute-Vienne, a kayaker has been lacking since Saturday afternoon, after an alert given by a number of witnesses who noticed him “in difficulty” on the flooded Vienne in Aixe-sur-Vienne, ten kilometers to the west from Limoges.

After a suspension “at nightfall”, the search, carried out by the gendarmerie, will resume Tuesday morning, the prefecture stated.

Other departments are on orange alert: Charente-Maritime, Charente, Gironde, Dordogne, Gard, Bouches-du-Rhône, signifies Météo-France.

In Gard, the prefecture introduced the closure to visitors of 17 submersible bridges and lookout crossings, in addition to quite a few municipal submersible bridges.

In mid-March, eight folks died in unhealthy climate linked to storm Monica which hit the south-east of France.

With AFP