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An aerial view of Saint Martin Vesubie, France
Photo: Valery Hache / dpa
Whole houses were swept away by the masses of water, roads and bridges destroyed, villages cut off from the outside world: Storms with floods have led to chaotic conditions in southeastern France and northern Italy.
There were several deaths.
In Austria and Switzerland, too, wind and rain caused great damage at the weekend, a four-year-old girl died.
According to media reports, at least seven people were believed to have died in Italy.
According to the Ansa news agency, five bodies were discovered on Sunday in places on the Mediterranean coast in Liguria, such as Sanremo.
They could have been washed into the sea by rivers, a victim could even come from France.
In the mountainous hinterland of Nice, a man was found dead in his car in Saint-Martin-Vésubie, as the AFP news agency reported, citing the fire department.
According to official information, at least eight people were missing, including two firefighters.
There was no news from others.
There is great concern about the final casualty record, as Prime Minister Jean Castex said during a visit to the crisis region.
The Foreign Office in Berlin said that, according to the information available, there is currently no evidence that Germans were among the missing or victims of the storm.
The German embassy in Rome and the consulate general in Marseille were therefore in contact with the local authorities.
Army supports around 1000 firefighters in France
In the French department of Alpes-Maritimes and in northern Italy, the clean-up work started on Sunday.
Around 1,000 firefighters and the army were deployed in France.
In the Italian region of Piedmont, roads and bridges were damaged and cities flooded, for example in Limone Piemonte in the province of Cuneo.
The mayor there spoke of a "catastrophic situation".
The regions of Piedmont and Liguria complained of damage amounting to millions.
In the mountains north of the holiday metropolis Nice, villages were temporarily inaccessible.
The telephone network had collapsed.
Thousands of households were without electricity.
Rescuers brought water and food to the area.
Rémi Recio, head of the local prefect's closest staff, spoke of a "meteorological bomb" that fell over the department on Friday.
From the helicopter he saw scenes similar to war.
"You get the impression that the area has been bombed."
Houses were torn away by the masses of water.
There is still great uncertainty: "We currently do not know whether the houses were occupied or holiday homes," Recio told the news channel Franceinfo.
He said of the eight missing people that there were testimonies that they had disappeared in the floods.
In Italy, a 53-year-old volunteer firefighter from the municipality of Arnad in the Aosta Valley died after being hit by a fallen tree during a rescue operation.
A 36-year-old driver from Vercelli was torn away by the river water on a broken road.
His younger brother, on the other hand, managed to get out of the car and survived.
Vercelli is located between Turin and Milan.
Heaviest rains in Italy for 60 years
Sometimes it rained more heavily in north-western Italy from Friday to Saturday than it had been for around 60 years.
The power went out for thousands of people.
The authorities continued to warn of flood risks over the weekend.
This also applied to the Po River, which flows across Italy from the west and flows into the Adriatic Sea.
21 people who were missing in Piedmont were finally found on the other side of the border in the hinterland of Nice, according to the French news agency AFP.
A German trekking group with five men and a woman who was initially thought to be missing in the Piedmontese valley of Valle Gesso was discovered in a hut and brought to safety.
In Venice, the new Mose flood protection system was launched for the first time in a real danger situation on Saturday.
The gates of the flood locks at the openings of the lagoon were erected.
On Sunday it was said in reports that Moses had had an effect: Despite the increased water levels, St. Mark's Square in the center remained dry.
The French Prime Minister Castex and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin rushed to the Alpes-Maritimes department on Saturday.
Castex assured the population of support.
This Wednesday, the cabinet will declare a disaster for affected communities.
Among other things, this facilitates compensation.
The south of France has been hit by severe storms for years.
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pgo / dpa