2023-08-25 04:15:58
A violent episode of very localized hail left two injured and significant damage Thursday in the village of Arc-en-Barrois (Haute-Marne), we learned from the prefecture and the firefighters. Like a large north-eastern quarter of France, the department is classified as orange alert to thunderstorms until midnight Thursday.
This hailstorm of “10 to 15 minutes”, very localized and “of exceptional violence” caused “very substantial damage to vehicles and roofs and two people were injured”, without their vital prognosis being engaged, reported the prefect of Haute-Marne Régine Pam, who went there.
⛈ Storms circulating in the northeast sometimes give hailstones reaching 3 to 5 cm! Images of Arc-en-Barrois in Haute-Marne where damage is reported. (© Sandrine Cousin Steib) pic.twitter.com/lR3djkEi18
— Weather Express (@WeatherExpress) August 24, 2023
A man “who wanted to secure his roof at the end of the episode fell” and a lady was “knocked down by a hailstone”, she said.
“The hailstones were really the size of an egg”
According to the firefighters, the first, a man in his fifties, fell 8 m and was transported, in “absolute emergency”, to the Chaumont hospital. The injured lady, in her 80s, was hit more lightly, they added.
“The hailstones were really the size of an egg” testified to AFP the co-manager of Cagette Haut-Marnaise, Mathilde Kims. At home, 1.3 hectares of greenhouses were destroyed by the episode.
The damage in the houses was being recorded Thursday evening, according to the prefect. Régine Pam described “holes 5 to 10 cm in diameter” in roofs and stressed that rains could worsen the situation for residents in the next 24 hours.
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