LOOK. “Seems like the end of the world”: eastern France hit by heavy thunderstorms with huge hail balls | Abroad

Météo-France announced code red on Tuesday for the departments of Haute-Saône, Doubs, Jura, Territoire de Belfort and Haut-Rhin due to the risk of severe thunderstorms. Code red is very rare in France. For example, it was only announced once last year. Code orange for thunderstorms was in effect in 24 eastern French departments and code orange for heat was in force in nine departments. Today, the warning for thunderstorms still applies in twelve departments.

In Haut-Rhin, 6,000 households were without power on Tuesday evening due to the storm, the local prefecture reports. In the Territoire de Belfort, 1,200 families still had no electricity around 10 p.m. Around 8 p.m., there were still 4,000. According to the prefecture, wind gusts of up to 109 kilometers per hour were recorded and lightning struck more than 500 times. In the Doubs department, about 2,500 households were also without power.

Numerous spectacular images of the extreme weather are doing the rounds on social media. The videos show, among other things, how hailballs the size of a tennis ball fall from the sky. “It seems like the end of the world,” the residents say. The violent storm caused a lot of material damage in several places. For example, the roof of a supermarket in Dijon collapsed while customers were still inside. Fortunately there were no injuries.

It is also very hot in various parts of France at the moment. In the department of Haute-Savoie, for example, the temperature climbed to 40.2 degrees Celsius. It was the first time the mercury rose above 40 degrees on the French mainland this year. Today it would cool down a bit.

There were also heavy thunderstorms in Switzerland on Tuesday on the hottest day of the year. In Chur in the canton of Graubünden, the warmest place in the country, the mercury rose to 37.6 degrees. In the canton of Friborg, a woman was seriously injured by a lightning strike and there were delays at Zurich airport due to the storm. Just like in France, code red applied to almost the entire country in Switzerland. It has been since 2011 that the highest alert level was in effect in all regions.