About 450,000 households in southern France were without electricity on Friday after a powerful storm swept through the region, toppling trees, flooding roads and disrupting transport networks.
Electricity distribution operator Enedis said the outages followed the passage of Storm Nils, which French forecasters described as “unusually strong.”
High winds and heavy rain battered southern France on Thursday and extended into northern Spain and parts of Portugal, forcing the cancellation of flights, train services and ferries, while causing major road disruptions.
French authorities confirmed that a truck driver was killed when a tree smashed through his windscreen. In Spain, dozens of people were reported injured in weather-related incidents, while in Portugal a viaduct partially collapsed due to severe flooding.
Enedis said around 900,000 customers had initially lost power, adding that supply had been restored to about half of them by 6:00 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Friday.
“Flooding complicates repairs because the fields are waterlogged and some roads are blocked,” Enedis crisis director Herve Champenois said during a press briefing.
The company said it had mobilised about 3,000 personnel to work on reconnecting affected households to the grid.
Residents across southern France described scenes of chaos as the storm struck.
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“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ingrid, a florist in Perpignan, told Agence France-Presse. “A tree almost fell on my car — two seconds more, and it would have.”
Eugenie Ferrier, 32, from the village of Roaillan near Bordeaux, said the intensity of the winds was frightening.
“During the night, you could hear tiles lifting, rubbish bins rolling down the street — it was crazy,” she said.
Forecasters said Storm Nils had moved eastwards away from French territory by Thursday, though some areas remained under flood alerts as authorities continued damage assessments and restoration efforts.