A tornado in the Aude department, southern France, injured at least 26 people and damaged around 100 homes in Pomas, near Carcassonne, mobilizing more than 115 firefighters this Monday.
The tornado struck the town of Pomas at approximately 5:20 P.M. local time, according to local media. The southwestern part of the country was under an orange storm alert this Monday. The storm and strong winds also caused flooding and fallen trees in Catalonia, Spain.
According to the government delegation of Aude (Préfet de l’Aude), rescue operations continue and the injured are in “relative urgency” condition. Five people have been transferred to hospital centers, while 14 specialists in urban search and rescue (USAR) and a canine unit participate in operations in Pomas.
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The prefecture calls for prudence and asks citizens to stay informed through official sources and not to spread false information, as well as not to saturate emergency lines unnecessarily and to avoid approaching the sector to facilitate the intervention of rescue services.
The Red Cross has also mobilized to assist those affected, and temporary accommodation centers have been set up for the night after the tornado affected several localities between Carcassonne and Limoux, especially Pomas. Several departmental roads remain closed due to fallen trees or to facilitate emergency operations. In addition, some 2,800 households were left without electricity in ten municipalities of the department.
About twenty departments were on storm alert this Monday, including the rain and hail episode that hit the ascent to the Col de Mont Louis, 16 kilometers from the finish of Font Romeu.
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New Storms Forecast
The official meteorological institute Météo France warned of a new wave of storms during Monday night in the Mediterranean, mainly in Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, which could later reach the Alpes-Maritimes and Corsica.
These stormy episodes can produce rainfall of between 30 and 50 liters per square meter in one hour, hail and wind gusts of 90 to 110 kilometers per hour, with local maximums of 120 km/h.
In addition, instability is expected to continue in the coming days. On Tuesday, storms will move toward the northeast, while on Wednesday potentially violent storms could occur in a quarter of northwestern France. Thursday is expected to bring frequent storms from the Massif Central to the northeast of the country.
Authorities maintain active surveillance and urge the population in the affected areas to follow official instructions. The emergency response in Pomas demonstrates the scale of a meteorological event that has once again exposed the vulnerability of European territories to extreme weather phenomena, in a summer marked by record heat and increasingly frequent violent storms across the continent.
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