19:25 02Dec2003 Three die in French floods, 1,000 evacuated

PARIS, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Three people died and two were missing on Tuesday as flash floods swept
south and eastern France, forcing about 1,000 people to evacuate their homes and two nuclear
reactors to close down temporarily.
A 45-year-old man was found dead after he was swept away by floodwater in a Marseille suburb,
while a second person in the Mediterranean port city has been missing since Monday.
The body of a woman was found in the River Meyne in nearby Orange while a man drowned in the
Ardeche village of Arlebosc. A 53-year-old woman was missing in the Loire valley, thought to have
fallen off a bridge into the swollen river below.
Rescue services used barges to evacuate some 1,000 people from their homes in a northern suburb
of Marseille.
"We are on a war footing. The situation is extremely worrying the length of the Rhone valley,"
Christian Fremont, prefect of the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region, said of forecasts that the rain
would last until Thursday.
"The earth is saturated and the wind is against us. It seems we are in for the long haul," he
told reporters.
A spokeswoman for the government nuclear safety authority ASN said the two reactors were shut
early on Tuesday as a precaution after the heavy rains. She said the restarting of the reactors
would depend on river levels.
The Meteo France weather agency said 150 mm (six inches) of rain fell on Marseille in the past
24 hours and up to 213 mm in nearby towns -- compared to seasonal norms of up to 70 mm.
Local train traffic was badly hit, with all trains cancelled along the Valence-Avignon artery
and heavy delays elsewhere.

Tuesday, 02 December 2003 19:25:12RTRS [nL02285394] {C}ENDS