IMAGES Three dead after violent storms in Corsica

[IMAGES] Three dead after violent storms in Corsica

Violent thunderstorms that have been hitting the Mediterranean arc since Tuesday have killed and injured three people on the French island of Corsica, according to a report by authorities on Thursday.

After severe heat and drought, the brutal thunderstorms and gusts of up to 224 km/h on Thursday also caused property damage and required numerous rescue operations at sea.

A 13-year-old girl was killed by a tree that fell on her bungalow at a campsite in Sagone, west of the island. Nine people were also injured at the site, including one seriously, the fire department told the AFP news agency.

A 72-year-old woman died on a beach in Coggia, also in Corsica, after the roof of a straw hut fell on her vehicle, the prefecture said.

In the north of the island, a 46-year-old man also died in Calvi when a tree fell on his bungalow, while a 23-year-old woman, an Italian, was also seriously injured by the fall of a tree in the same pine forest. According to the prefecture of that department, she was taken to the hospital with cardiac arrest.

Dozens of operations are also underway at sea “because of strandings, overturned or sinking boats whose anchorage is broken,” a spokesman for the maritime prefecture told AFP.

In addition, 45,000 customers across the island are without electricity, said the operator EDF Corse.

The storms left the island to move towards Italy at the end of the morning, specified Météo-France, which lifted the alert in force since the morning.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, strong thunderstorms with persistent rain hit the south-east of France, several departments of which had been put on alert until Wednesday evening.

The damage was limited, even if, according to Météo-France, the rainfall was considerable at up to 123 millimeters in Laroux, a village about 60 kilometers from Montpellier.