Now God Strikes France with " Flood Of Century "

He keeps  slaping those frogs for their anti US bashing all right. Floods,
Fires , record heat waves , Flu , tanking economy etc.
Bet those frogs  wish they had been bashing Saddam instead of doing back
door deals with him !



France braced for "floods of century"
Wed 3 December, 2003 08:10



LYON, France (Reuters) - Torrential rain drenching parts of southeastern
France threaten to worsen flash floods that have cost at least three lives
and forced about 4,000 people to evacuate their homes.

Flooding along the Rhone River from Lyon to Marseille was due to hit its
peak during the day, while winds of up to 150 kph were expected to lash the
Mediterranean coast, officials said.

Heavy rain moving west also set off flood alerts reaching as far as the
Pyranees Mountains.

"Today we're faced with what could be the floods of the century," government
spokesman Jean-Francois Cope told Europe 1 radio. "We have to mobilise all
our resources."

Several highways and many secondary roads were cut off and train services
from Lyon westwards were stopped by the worst flooding seen in the region in
decades.

Environment Minister Rosaline Bachelot was due to visit Marseille on
Wednesday. She said on Tuesday 4,000 firefighters, 100 soldiers and eight
helicopters had been mobilised.

On Tuesday, a 45-year-old man was found dead after he was swept away by
floodwater in a Marseille suburb. A second person in the Mediterranean port
city has been missing since Monday.

The body of a woman was found in the River Meyne in nearby Orange, while a
man drowned in the Ardeche village of Arlebosc. A 53-year-old woman was
missing in the Loire valley, thought to have fallen off a bridge into the
swollen river below.

A spokeswoman for the government nuclear safety authority ASN said two
reactors were shut early on Tuesday as a precaution after the heavy rains.
She said the restarting of the reactors would depend on river levels.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=413857&section=news