LYON, violent storms caused severe flooding over the weekend mainly affecting the Drome and Upper Loire regions of France. A storm ripped through a campsite at Perpignan in the south of the country where 35 campers were injured. More than 300 houses in the town of Loriol in the Drome region were flooded by more than a meter of water overnight Saturday. The water caused the collapse of several of the 11th century ramparts which protected the town.

Most of the rain fell between 3.00am and 6.00am (0100 GMT and 0400 GMT) forcing around 100 people from their beds into an emergency centre set up in a community hall. About 200 people were evacuated from several communities near the city of Valence late on Saturday as a precaution after the Loire river rose nearly three metres over the flood alert level.

The floods came after heavy rains and high winds, sometimes reaching 120 kilometers per hour (75 miles miles per hour) uprooted and felled trees and caused temporary power cuts to thousands of households in eastern and central France.