Storm "Monica" is sweeping south-eastern France, spreading death and destruction.
There was no further news of seven people, the bodies of 3 of them were found in the afternoon.
The victims of this very violent wave of bad weather, with torrential rain and rivers that overflowed in a few hours, were all caught by the violence of the waters while trying to cross bridges over swollen waterways.
Breathless for the missing, among whom there is a family man with his two children aged 4 and 13.
They ended up overwhelmed by the waters late last night, just before midnight, when they found themselves on a bridge over the Gardon river in Dions, a village of 500 inhabitants north of Nimes.
The children's mother, a 40-year-old woman, was saved and is hospitalized.
The family's car was found downstream from the scene of the drama, empty.
In the Gard department, 300 firefighters, gendarmes and rescuers have been working continuously since Saturday evening, in the hope of finding the 3 still reported missing alive.
They use boats, inflatable boats, helicopters, drones, trained dogs.
Other specialized teams are working in the nearby Ardèche region looking for a man who has no longer been heard from in the village of Saint-Martin-de Valamas.
He is the seventh on the list of those considered missing, before the discovery of the 3 victims.
He was the manager of a hydroelectric power plant, it seems he had gone out to check the plant.
The other victims had also attempted to cross risky bridges, with the rivers swollen under the rains which for 24 hours continuously lashed the area with a volume of water equal to that which falls in an entire month.
The first body was found a few hundred meters from a car in which two Belgian nationals were travelling, near the village of Gagnières.
The vehicle had ventured onto the bridge despite the fact that the road had been closed by the Civil Protection services and a municipal policeman had ordered the driver not to continue.
One of the two people on board managed to get out and was saved after hanging from the branches of a tree for a couple of hours.
The other two bodies are of two women, aged around 50, found near Goudargues.
They were in the car near a small village from where they had managed to call the emergency services at 5 in the morning because they were in difficulty.
But it was already too late.
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