PARIS - Freak storms packing howling winds and heavy rain that lashed Britain and France this week were set to continue Wednesday, after already causing significant destruction and the deaths of at least four people. Rescuers in southern France resumed searches for at least five swimmers caught by surprise by the sudden change in the weather that occurred Tuesday, roiling waters into huge waves and pushing out powerful gusts of up to 80 kilometres (50 miles) per hour. The four people confirmed killed drowned as they swam off separate beaches and in a river.

In Britain, residents of Boscastle, a coastal village in north Cornwall, were bracing for more rain two days after flash floods sent a wall of water tearing through the place, collapsing buildings and sweeping more than 50 automobiles into the sea. Although no deaths were reported from the Boscastle disaster, police continued to search for more than a dozen people who remained unaccounted for. Further torrential and thundery rain is expected and might remain, albeit less violently, for much of the country until the end of the week

In western Switzerland, the storms caused property damage but no casualties, according to police. Fallen trees crushed one building, and several houses had their roofs ripped off, while flooding swamped at least eight villages. Forecasts are suggesting France could expect more storms later Wednesday with hail, lightning and very strong winds, prompting authorities to issue a warning for Paris just one level below its maximum alert.

The European Environment Agency, an EU-wide network of environmental data collection, said in a new report on global warming caused by greenhouse gases that in the future there would be

more frequent and more economically costly storms, floods, droughts and other extreme weather.

The head of the EEA, Jacqueline McGlade, said Europe had to continue to reduce the causes of climate change.

In Britain and France, media took stock of the decidedly un-summery assault unleashed by nature.
When, suddenly, the weather goes crazy, the French daily Le Parisien headlined.

Peril increases as world gets hotter, Britain's The Times newspaper said.
Rains, rivers and ruin, one of its rivals, The Guardian, wrote.

France suffered the worst in terms of lives lost because the storm front hit abruptly at the peak of the August vacation season, when beach and river resorts are full of holidaymakers keen to cool off by swimming. The four confirmed dead were French nationals. Three of them drowned on beaches near the southwestern port city of Montpellier, including the 46-year-old man who died when big waves threw him against rocks. The 36-year-old man drowned while suffering a heart attack after saving two children from the rough sea, officials said. The body of the 19-year-old woman was found early Wednesday on the banks of the Beaume river north of Marseille by two walkers, seven kilometres (four miles) from the spot upstream where she had been swept away. Her boyfriend, who had been swimming with her at the time, had managed to hold on to a rock until he was rescued.yOther searches have been mounted for two boys, aged 12 and 18, and two other swimmers who disappeared while swimming off beaches near Montpellier, and for a man in his 20s who was bathing in a river near Marseille. A horse-riding school in central France reported that it was hit by a mini-cyclone late Tuesday that plucked off roofs and damaged buildings. None of the horses or the 35 instructors and children was hurt.

Copyright 2004. AFP & WeatherOnline Ltd.