About 120,000 households were without power on Tuesday from the early evening in the southwest of France. The Basque Country to Charentes, were affected following the passage of severe thunderstorms, we have learned from to Enedis (ex ERDF).
The affected households from the severe weather of Thunderstorms, wind and rain, are on the western front of France from the Pyrenees-Atlantiques to the north of Charentes, said a spokesman from Enedis, without more geographic accuracy after initial diagnosis. The situation was still evolving, and many homes could have been reconnected during the night, whilst others could be affected this morning, he said.
According to Meteo France, about 70,000 lightning strikes were recorded on the west.
Seven departments in the Southeast of France are still on an orange alert this Wednesday at 6 am, according to Météo France: Aveyron, Lozère, Gard, Hérault and Ardèche, Bouches-du-Rhône and Vaucluse.
Nineteen departments in the West and the South West were placed in orange alert yesterday, Tuesday for storms which can be violent sometimes, accompanied by violent winds and hail, according to Météo France.
Intense thunderstorms were to develop rapidly in Aquitaine late Tuesday afternoon, and then gradually spread to the Loire Valley and east of Brittany in the evening and first part of night.
Falling trees, power cuts
In the Pyrenees-Atlantiques and Landes, the first departments in the Southwest affected by the stormy episode on Tuesday, firefighters counted nearly a hundred calls in total, mainly for falling trees, tiles or power lines, flooded basements, fire outbreaks, not serious and no victims.
Some thousands of homes in the area of Oloron-on-Marie were without electricity due to a fire in a transformer.
In Gironde, firefighters have identified about 195 interventions, again mainly for flooded basements or falling objects. Some 23,000 households were without electricity, according to the prefecture, mainly in Bordeaux, Langon sectors and Libourne. But the situation was very progressive, in Lege-Cap-Ferret, where 2600 homes were affected by cuts from 7.30pm, but this was reduced to 450 homes, two hours later.
In the Dordogne, firefighters carried out a hundred interventions in total, for the trees on the pavement, fallen electrical wires and fires due to lightning. They reported numerous power cuts.
