Nice : Violent storms and flooding struck the glitzy French Riviera today, killing 10 people and leaving six missing, according to an official toll. President Francois Hollande was expected to visit the site of the disaster, which occurred when the Cote d’Azur received up to 180 millimetres (seven inches) of rain in just three hours.
Three people died when water engulfed a retirement home at Biot near Antibes, and three drowned when their car was trapped by rising waters in a small tunnel at Vallauris-Golfe-Juan.
Other fatalities were reported in Antibes and Cannes. Rescue teams at Mandelieu-la-Napoule, meanwhile, were searching for six people missing in underground car parks, according to emergency coordinators.
Water coursed through Cannes, Nice and Antibes, transforming the streets of three of France’s most glamorous cities into debris-strewn rivers. “Some cars were carried off into the sea,” said Cannes Mayor Davis Lisnard, describing water levels reaching halfway up car doors and trees left uprooted on the city’s main avenue.
