Paris: why the Saint-Matin canal overflowed without a drop of rain

What happened at Canal Saint-Martin?

This Monday evening, around 7 p.m., motorists were somewhat hallucinated while driving in several centimeters of water, quai de Jemmapes (Xe), quai de Valmy and around, to République, despite a total absence of rain!

Water poured in streams from the canal onto the road.

"Evening with your feet in the water", quipped a user on Twitter.

In question ?

An electrical malfunction on a lock in Stalingrad (19th century).

The lock keepers could no longer open it.

This had the consequence of overflowing the water in the canal.

The flood lasted a few tens of minutes.

It was the Paris firefighters, around fifty men mobilized, who finally solved the case.

"We managed to open the lock manually," said the spokesperson for the BSPP (Paris Fire Brigade).

At 9 p.m., the soldiers were still there.

The water had flowed naturally into the canal and the sewers.

But if the incident did not cause injuries, apart from a pedestrian who slipped, on the other hand, some material damage is to be deplored.

Firefighters had to pump water from a flooded building parking lot.

"I would like to know what happened", annoyed Alexandra Cordebard, the mayor (PS) of the tenth for whom this incident is a first, "unheard of", and who this Monday evening was in contact the departments concerned.

For his part, Dan Lert, deputy (PS) to the Mayor of Paris, in charge of the ecological transition, the climate plan and water, indicated on Twitter that his teams were on site, specifying: "The city ensures the repair of the device at the origin of the incident and interrupts the regulation of water bodies on the Saint-Martin canal ”.