France tornado injures 39, damages 300 homes in Pomas

A tornado in southern France injured 39 people, two of them severely, and damaged about 300 homes in the village of Pomas after sweeping through the Aude department late Monday, officials said.

Seventeen people were hospitalised. Pomas, a village of about 1,000 people, was hit hardest as the tornado brought down walls, tore off roofs and uprooted trees.

Pomas Mayor Herve Gine said the village had suffered destruction that felt like “a wartime situation”. He said some residents had “lost everything” and that the village no longer had a school or town hall. He said it was a “miracle” no one died.

Gine said around 300 of the village’s 476 homes were damaged and that much of Pomas would have to be rebuilt.

Grid operator Enedis said 7,250 households across the Languedoc-Roussillon region were without power by early Tuesday, including 1,600 in Aude.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on X that the tornado was “of rare intensity”. Marie-Helene Bouissac, the regional deputy prefect, called it “an exceptional and highly traumatic event”.

Emergency crews worked through the night. The prefecture said search and inspection operations were still under way on Tuesday, involving 75 firefighters and specialist reinforcement teams, with a canine search unit also used at the site.

Some residents were accommodated overnight in a community hall converted into a temporary shelter, while others stayed with friends and relatives, officials said.

An AFP journalist saw roofs covered with plastic tarpaulins, debris in narrow streets, overturned cars, shattered windows and nearby fields littered with material carried by the winds.

Meteo-France says France sees several dozen tornadoes of varying intensity each year. International scientists say the impact of global warming on the frequency and intensity of tornadoes is unclear.