Weather warnings still in place after Storm Eleanor
As clean-up begins, flood and avalanche warnings remain active in 21 departments, while work continues to restore power to thousands of homes
Twenty-one departments remained on orange weather alert on Thursday morning, a day after Storm Eleanor left more than 200,000 homes without power, brought down trees, delayed flights and caused the death of a skier in the Haute-Savoie.
Twenty-nine people were injured, four of them seriously, as the storm passed.
Early on Thursday, power had been restored to all but 35,000 homes, including 11,000 on Corsica where fires caused by the storm burned 1,500 hectares of land, while firefighters across the country reported that they had been called out 6,450 times.
Weather warnings, however, remain in place, with high seas and dangerous waves forecast along the coasts of Charente-Maritime, Côtes-d'Armor, Finistère, Gironde, Ille-et-Vilaine, Landes, Manche, Pas-de-Calais, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Seine-Maritime, Somme and Vendée.
This video, posted on Twitter, was filmed at Saint-Malo on Wednesday.
Un coefficient de 107 avec une mer agitée ça donne ça à @VilleSaintMalo et ça reste impressionnant #storm #eleanor pic.twitter.com/LiSOG1byT0
— Jacques GUYADER (@JacquesGuyader) January 4, 2018
Swollen rivers could burst their banks in Doubs, Eure, Gironde, Jura, Haute-Saône, Seine-Maritime and Territoire de Belfort; while heavy rain could lead to localised flooding in Isère, Savoie and Haute-Savoie.
The last two departments are also on the orange alert for avalanches, along with the Hautes-Alpes.
On Wednesday, the Mont-Blanc, Beaufortin, Vanoise, Haute Tarentaise, Haute Maurienne, Thabord, Pelvoux and Champsor massifs were all placed on the highest avalanche warning level; while a skier in was killed by a falling tree in Morillon, Haute-Savoie.
One person was hospitalised and two others slightly injured when a falling power line sparked a fire in the Haute-Corse village of Chiatra, while the storm led to wildfires near Bastia and Sant' Andrea di Cotone that burned about 1,500 hectares of land. Firefighters struggled to contain the fires in the high winds, which kept Canadairs grounded.
