By AFP - Agence France Presse
'I'm out of here': French town waits for floodwaters to recede
On Thursday, residents of a flooded French town waited for the water to drain from their streets after a nearby river did not rise as high as expected.
The Herminia depression earlier this week unleashed rain in northwest France, causing some of the worst flooding in decades.
Surrounded by two rivers, a canal, and marshes, several parts of the town of Redon in Brittany have been flooded since Wednesday.
The level of the Vilaine River on Thursday morning was just below the level of the historic floods of 2001, the official Vigicrues warning agency reported.
The river was expected to rise further later in the day and on Friday, but by Thursday evening it had remained at more or less the same level, according to the agency's website.
“Things are calming down,” said local official Amaury de Saint-Quentin.
The mayor of Redon, Pascal Duchene, had said earlier in the day that the town was preparing for a “peak” in the coming days and estimated that 750 residents could be affected.
The Red Cross set up an emergency shelter for 50 people in a local sports center, with camp beds lined up and tables and chairs placed under basketball hoops.
A second shelter was being set up for 200 people, a Red Cross official said.
Adeline Bernard, 29, was one of the first people to find refuge in the sports center.
“When I saw that the electricity was going to be cut off and that the water was rising, I thought: 'That's it, I'm out of here',” she said.
- 'A bit scary'
Isabelle Rousselet, 66, said she was happy to be living in a higher part of the city.
“It's going to take a while for it all to fade away. It's a bit scary,” she said.
In a flooded part of Redon, one resident waded through the water outside her house in rubber boots, while another staggered across wooden planks balanced on concrete blocks on a street corner.
In the nearby town of Saint-Nicolas-de-Redon, on the other side of a flooded bridge, police evacuated 300 people.
In total, around 1,600 people were forced to leave their homes in the region.
The farmers' union FDSEA said that some stables were flooded with up to a meter of water and that cereals planted in the autumn were “drowned”.
President Emmanuel Macron assured X on Thursday of his “solidarity with the residents of western France”.
Scientists have shown that climate change caused by humans burning fossil fuels is making storms more severe, burdened by warming oceans.
Herminia's impact on the north-western regions of France was exacerbated by the fact that the ground was already soaked from previous rains.
More rain followed on Wednesday.
bur-vid-mas/ah/sbk