PARIS: A violent and unexpected storm battered the French Mediterranean island of Corsica on Thursday (Aug 18), killing at least six people including a teenage girl, and meteorologists predicted more bad weather to come.
Hail, heavy rain and winds peaking at 224kmh swept the island early in the day. Two of the victims were killed when trees fell in campsites.
“Storms formed at sea will affect large parts of the western Corsica coast throughout the night from Thursday to Friday,” Meteo France forecaster said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he had called an emergency government meeting by video conference on Thursday evening to respond to the crisis.
Visiting Corsica, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that at one point about 350 people had been reported missing as pleasure boats had capsized or been thrown adrift, but he added they had now all been found alive and well.
Witnesses of the morning storm, which wrecked campsites, delayed trains and uprooted trees, said they had never seen anything like it on the island.
“We have never seen such huge storms as this, you would think it was a tropical storm,” said Cedric Boell, manager of the restaurant Les Gones Corses in northern Corsica, who saw two pleasure boats tossed on to nearby rocks.
Yolhan Niveau, 24, a wildlife photographer staying at a campsite near San-Nicolao in the northeast of the island, said the storm had torn through the site, uprooting trees and damaging mobile homes.
“There was no warning … I don’t feel scared just stupefaction. No one expected this,” Niveau said.
In central Italy, two people were killed by falling trees on Thursday as powerful storms battered several regions.
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