Driver Ploughs Through Flooded Roads Near Marseille

A driver ploughed through still-flooded roads in Gignac-la-Nerthe, near Marseille, the morning after a deadly Mediterranean storm swamped the Bouches-du-Rhône.

X user Coco filmed from behind the wheel on October 21, writing that the roads were “still flooded” and that it felt as though the car would be carried away. The footage shows a line of cars pushing through brown water rushing across the road, with waves breaking around the vehicles.

The storm on October 20 brought record rain to parts of the department. Salon-de-Provence had its wettest day since 1938, and towns including Martigues, Saint-Chamas and Châteauneuf-les-Martigues were among the hardest hit.

By the evening of October 21, the prefecture said three people had died: a 75-year-old in Saint-Mitre-les-Remparts and two women, aged 86 and 26, who drowned in a cellar in Lançon-Provence. Several roads and rail lines in the west of the department were still cut.