Four dead, eight missing and 13 people wanted.
This is the latest provisional assessment of the severe bad weather that fell during the weekend of October 3 and 4 in the Alpes-Maritimes, where Emmanuel Macron is expected on Wednesday alongside Gerald Darmanin.
Four days after the passage of storm Alex,
Le Figaro
takes stock of the latest information reaching us from the region.
Read also: Alpes-Maritimes: why the extreme rains will intensify
Four dead in France, two in Italy, eight people wanted
The exceptionally intense bad weather that fell in the Alpes-Maritimes and northern Italy caused the death of four people in France, according to a still provisional report, dated Tuesday, October 6 at 1 p.m.
Eight people are also missing and thirteen others "
supposedly missing
".
Two deaths were also recorded in Italy.
Doubt also surrounded the case of a man found in Ventimiglia, but who had not yet been formally identified Monday evening by the French authorities as a victim of the Roya valley.
Homes in Saint-Martin-Vésubie were devastated.
ERIC GAILLARD / REUTERS
Remains from cemeteries
The Italian authorities have also discovered five bodies on the coast of Liguria, near France.
But according to the prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes, these bodies, including several in a state of "
great decomposition
", "
must very probably correspond
" to the coffins carried away in the floods of French cemeteries.
600 firefighters and soldiers deployed
In the department, more than 600 firefighters and soldiers are hard at work to continue search, rescue, refueling and clearing operations.
Numerous evacuations took place, especially in the Roya and Vésubie valleys, where 52 people were helicoptered.
200 are still on the waiting list.
A total of 935 victims were rescued.
Army helicopters are mobilized on site.
VALERY HACHE / AFP
Villages still inaccessible, lacking water
Tuesday, October 5 at 1 p.m., four villages in the south-east of France remained inaccessible: Tende, La Brigue, Saorge and Fontan.
The roads were swallowed up by the waves, as were many houses and communal infrastructures.
Bottles of water were distributed by helicopter as soon as the rivers receded, but did not meet the needs for hygiene.
Read also: In the Alpes-Maritimes, the desolation after the terrible flood
“
The emergency in Tende is water and psychological support for very shocked residents
,” explained the community of the French Riviera.
In this village of some 2,000 inhabitants located in the Roya valley very hard hit by the floods, teams are trying to put water pumps back into service on old sources, the public establishment reported.
Residents of Saint-Martin-Vésubie awaiting a distribution of food.
ERIC GAILLARD / REUTERS
In the village of Saint-Dalmas, there is only one drinking water point where people can get supplies, as in Breil-sur-Roya, where there are still only two drinking water points at the hospital center. and among firefighters, detailed the community of municipalities.
In Saorge, it is on a thin trickle of water that the inhabitants can count.
5,000 households still without electricity
In addition to the wastewater treatment plants destroyed during the disaster, the electricity network was also severely damaged.
Some 5,000 homes were still without electricity on Tuesday, against 15,000 at the height of the weather, according to Enedis.
“
We have not found such a violent and localized phenomenon with places made so inaccessible.
It's very exceptional,
”commented Marianne Laigneau, Chairman of the Management Board of Enedis.
Almost all types of properties have been destroyed.
VALERY HACHE / AFP
If electricity has been restored for all customers accessible by road, "
the difficulty remains for certain isolated villages
".
To deal with the most in a hurry, each of the villages has however been equipped with at least one generator that the inhabitants must share.
About thirty generators were initially transported by army helicopters and another hundred are about to be distributed, according to the electrician.
1/6 - A vehicle buried under the branches.
VALERY HACHE / AFP
"
When these villages will be accessible by tracks, we will be able to go through a temporary resupply by pulling cables, but for the moment this is not possible because it is necessary to pass very heavy machinery, nacelles, tracks, cranes,
”added Marianne Laigneau.
“
Thirdly, we will be able to rebuild the network largely washed away with roads and bridges.
Even the underground part of the network, often along the roadside, was washed away
, ”continued the chairman of the Enedis management board.
Seven wolves on the run
Seven black wolves in Canada are wanted on Tuesday, after the destruction of their enclosure in the Alpha animal park, in the Mercantour park, above Nice, the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) told AFP.
Read also: Seven wolves wanted after the floods in the Nice hinterland
Tuesday morning, two OFB agents and a firefighter veterinarian left by helicopter to try to find the animals, some of which were seen by witnesses "
between Saint-Martin-Vésubie and Boréon
", or close to the park where they were in captivity before the bad weather.
"
The priority is to locate them and capture them with a hypodermic rifle
," explained Eric Hansen, regional director of the OFB.
Call for national solidarity
However, the efforts are starting to bear fruit, noted an AFP journalist: the 35 kilometers that separate Menton from Breil-sur-Roya see an uninterrupted noria of work, refueling and rescue trucks, as well as vans. refrigerators delivering meals.
On the communications side, Breil-sur-Roya is once again reachable for users of different mobile operators.
A meeting is scheduled for the morning "
to audit the reconstruction work to be carried out,
" said Minister for Transport Jean-Baptiste Djebbari on RMC.
“
There are around forty departmental and metropolitan roads which are destroyed or badly damaged.
We will mobilize funds, in particular the stimulus fund, to do everything possible to do to restore the roads and railways,
”he said.
Read also: Storm Alex: a call for donations launched in the Alpes-Maritimes
A call for national solidarity to help these valleys to rebuild themselves was launched by the department.
Information on the state of the road network in real time is also available on the inforoute06.fr website and on the toll-free number 0805.05.06.06.