Nineteen people died and a score of other people were missing yesterday after raging floods inundated villages and towns in the Nimes and Avignon area of the south of France.
The catastrophe, following torrential rain, was the fifth of its kind in five years, bringing accusations that excessive building andmodern farming techniques had left small communities vulnerable to instant flooding.
The departement of the Gard, between the Mediterranean and the hills of the Massif Central, got the worst of the floods, with 16 dead and thousands of people forced from their homes.
The streets of the medieval village of Sommieres, were turned into raging torrents, nine feet deep in places.
In the village of Rousson, just north of Ales, a father and his two sons, aged six and two, were found drowned, after trying to take refuge in a tree. A 70-year- old motorist was drowned in Nimes, after ignoring police instructions and driving onto a flooded road.
In Ales, a lorry driver, Fabrice Roger, described how he had taken refuge with his heavy truck in a supermarket car-park. The rising water forced him and two motorists onto the roof of the cab and then the roof of the lorry. After waiting for rescue all night, with the water still rising, they were rescued by helicopter.
Although the flood waters were starting to abate, some motorways and railways in the Montpellier, Nimes and Avignon area were still closed yesterday afternoon.
Torrential downpours in the Cevennes mountains and their foothills in the Gard are common in September but meteorologists say that this year's rain was exceptional.
