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Major floods in southeastern France cause extensive damage and power outages. Massive floods caused serious damage and power outages on Friday in parts of France’s mountainous southeast region after days of heavy rain, though there were no immediate reports of any casualties. France’s weather authority Météo France placed six departments south of the city of Lyon on a red flood alert on Thursday. The alert was downgraded to ‘orange’ on Friday, indicating that water levels would come down again. In the town of Rive-de-Giers on the Loire, the water level in the Giers rose to , thus breaking the town's historical record set in 2008. In the streets of Rive-de-Giers, desolation is everywhere. Dozens of vehicles, tossed about by the current, found themselves embedded in each other while several trees were uprooted. The town hall car park, where the water rose highest, is still under water. More than a thousand people were evacuated and dozens rescued by helicopter in the “exceptional“ rains that fell on Thursday in the center-east and south-east of France.
