Tornado demolishes dozens of houses in Northern France, thunderstorms are also heavy here: view the images here | Weather news

The regional newspaper ‘La Voix du Nord’ reports that a small tornado destroyed a large part of the village of Bihucourt around 7 pm on Sunday. A video shared on social media also shows that the roof of the village’s Saint-Vaast church has been severely damaged.

Bihucourt in 360 inhabitants large. The wind has lifted several roofs and according to ‘La Voix du Nord’ half of the inhabitants have to find shelter elsewhere for the night. Eyewitnesses speak of a “war zone” and “the apocalypse”. In the neighboring municipality of Hendecourt-lès-Cagnicourt (320 inhabitants), about thirty houses were damaged. One person suffered minor injuries, according to local authorities.

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A tornado also passed in the municipality of Conty in the northern French department of Somme, reports ‘La Voix du Nord’. There would also be significant damage. “It lasted 20 seconds, everything flew around us… The fear of our lives”, Justine tells the weekly ‘Le Bonhomme Picard’ and in addition to damage to houses, infrastructure has also been damaged.

After causing major damage to the north of France, the storm passed through Hainaut, West and East Flanders, Dehenauw said. The storm cell was less active, but was accompanied by heavy wind gusts. The storm heads towards the Netherlands via Brussels and Antwerp.

“It cannot be ruled out that damage can also be reported in Flanders due to gusts of wind, lightning strikes or hailstones. It is not really exceptional and occurs several times a year,” the weatherman tells the radio news of Qmusic and Joe.

Images also show how thunderstorms pass over Flanders. They can be viewed above. The first severe thunderstorms have already been reported in certain places in West Flanders, with a lot of lightning but also hailstones of 2 to 3 centimeters in the vicinity of Poperinge, the KMI reports.

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In the Westhoek, the fire brigade had to turn out three times, reports VTM NIEUWS. A dozen houses in Elverdinge, a sub-municipality of Ypres, were temporarily without power due to a lightning strike, our regional editors report.

A street in Koekelare was flooded, but no houses got into trouble, according to VTM NIEUWS. The fire brigade also says that a number of streets in Aalst and Geraardsbergen are empty.

The RMI declared code yellow across the country from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. tonight. In the province of Limburg, code yellow will remain in effect until midnight.

Today, the FPS Home Affairs temporarily activates the emergency number 1722. Anyone who incurs storm and water damage in the coming hours that requires assistance from the fire brigade can submit an application via the e-counter www.1722.be or call 1722. 112 can only be called in situations that are potentially life-threatening.

Code yellow for rainfall and heavy wind gusts: images show how thunderstorms pass over Flanders

Lightning strikes residential area near Ypres: minor damage in ten homes

Also watch: David Dehenauw in VTM NEWS about the thunderstorm in Flanders