Ajaccio (AFP) – Two septuagenarians drowned in the night from Thursday to Friday in their car swept away by a flood in Southern Corsica, placed on orange alert due to a Mediterranean episode which swept the south of France.

Published on: 06/11/2026 - 18:04

Their daughter, aged 50, who was behind the wheel, was saved by emergency services, the prefecture said. She was evacuated by helicopter to the clinic in Porto-Vecchio (Southern Corsica).

All three were traveling by car, around 1:00 a.m., on the road linking Bonifacio to Porto-Vecchio.

“It was the birthday of the mother who died,” Ghjacumu Robin, chief of staff to the mayor of Porto-Vecchio, told AFP. The two septuagenarians, residents of Porto-Vecchio, had gone to Figari airport “to look for their daughter who was coming to see them”.

On the return road, "they found themselves blocked by bad weather", the road between Porto-Vecchio and Figari having been cut, and "made the detour via Bonifacio. They were carried away at the exit of Bonifacio before arriving in the town", he added.

While the couple's daughter was able to be extracted from the vehicle, her parents remained stuck in the car, carried away by the waves.

Deploring "a terrible tragedy", Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez indicated on X that the firefighter who managed to rescue the daughter of the two victims had also been hospitalized "due to hypothermia". He praised “the courage of the firefighters in particularly difficult conditions”.

Since Wednesday afternoon, a Mediterranean episode sweeping the south of France has caused evacuations in the south of Corsica and flooding in the Montpellier region.

The brunt of the bad weather seemed to have passed by midday on Friday, with the most active part of the disturbance shifting towards Italy, according to Météo-France which however extended its orange "rain-floods" vigilance over Southern Corsica until 4:00 p.m. "due to the delicate situation on the ground (floods and floods)".

“Extreme vigilance”

Emergency services indicated that they had carried out 43 interventions during the night and brought 32 people to safety in the south of Corsica.

The intense rains which fell on the Porto-Vecchio region had already led, during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, to the safety of several dozen people, including one "saved by the firefighters who took her out of her vehicle swept away by the water", the firefighters said.

Since the start of the rainy episode, "around 250 people have been welcomed into the town's gymnasium. They will gradually be able to return to their homes as the flood subsides", said Mr Robin.

“Despite the drop in rain since 3:00 a.m., extreme vigilance is required in Porto-Vecchio, and even a limitation of travel since, apart from the major roads such as Bastia, Porto-Vecchio and Porto-Vecchio-Ajaccio, we have the entire road network which is impassable,” he underlined.

Thursday evening, the prefecture warned of a “dangerous” stormy episode and asked the population to “stay at home”, take shelter in place and “never drive onto a flooded road”.

In eastern Corsica, Météo-France has recorded since Wednesday afternoon 150 to 250 mm of precipitation on an axis between Figari and the south-east of Corte, occasionally up to 300 to 350 mm on the relief.

In Gard and Hérault, orange vigilance was lifted at midnight on Thursday, but many roads remained flooded and impassable on Friday.

In the town of Sommières (Gard), schools will have to remain closed on Friday, the prefecture announced.

Thursday, the Gard firefighters intervened to rescue the four occupants of two vehicles stuck on a road flooded by 40 cm of water, although it was marked closed to traffic.

A previous Mediterranean episode left four dead and one missing at the end of October in Bouches-du-Rhône, Corsica and Var.

These violent bad weather conditions are increasing under the effect of global warming.

© 2026 AFP

The content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.