Floods and storms kill at least 20 in southern France

Torrential rains that battered southeastern France have killed at least 20 people and rescuers are searching for at least another dozen missing people.

Train services in the region were suspended today and many roads remained under water.

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy surveyed the battered area by helicopter today before visiting flood victims.

“We are here to show national solidarity,” Raffarin said in Villevielle near the medieval town of Sommieres.

And he pledged an initial €10.2m in state aid for the region.

Numerous rivers in the Gard, Vaucluse and Herault regions burst their banks as torrential rains pounded the area on Sunday.

Waves of water flushed the streets of villages, leaving them submerged. The rain finally let up today.

Electricity was slowly being restored, but tens of thousands of homes were still without power. Some 150,000 telephone lines had been cut, local LCI television reported.

Sixteen of those killed were mainly from the area around Nimes, popular with tourists for its Roman ruins.

A bolt of lightning killed a man in the Vaucluse region, east of the Gard.

In the Herault region of Languedoc, a 43-year-old firefighter died from injuries, officials said.