The remnants of Hurricane Kirk swept into western Europe Wednesday, tearing up trees in Portugal and Spain before dumping heavy rains on France that left at least one dead. A storm swell in the Mediterranean off the port city of Sete in southern France overturned three boats, killing one amateur sailor and putting another in the hospital in critical condition, said Herault department authorities. Some 64,000 people in the south of France were also left without power, network supplier Enedis told AFP, while several departments reported roads cut off by floodwaters.
Following a crisis response meeting in Paris, Energy and Ecological Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told journalists the government was mobilising "all state services" and urged citizens to be careful. "These episodes will have a tendency to recur. We're living at a time when climate change is making itself felt in concrete ways in our daily lives," she said.
Authorities put the Seine-et-Marne department near Paris on red alert for flooding as the rain swelled the Grand Morin river, a tributary of the Seine, which runs through the French capital. Another 29 of the country's departments were placed on orange alert, with heavy rains and high winds expected. There were 35,000 households that lost electricity in the worst-hit department of Pyrenees-Atlantiques, with a clutch of other departments in the southwest and central east of the country also affected, Enedis said.
Weather forecasters had predicted the .
