PARIS — Two people have lost their lives after powerful thunderstorms tore through France overnight, bringing a deadly end to a prolonged period of extreme heat. By Friday, roughly 53,000 households were left without electricity, according to French media reports and grid operator Enedis.
In the central Haute-Vienne department, a woman died Thursday evening when a falling tree struck her in the town of Saint-Victurnien. Separately, in the eastern town of Dolomieu, a man was discovered burned to death late Thursday night inside a workshop that had caught fire after being struck by lightning, according to AFP.
Grid operator Enedis reported Friday that the power outages were concentrated primarily in two regions — the Auvergne Rhone-Alpes area in the southeast and Nouvelle Aquitaine in the southwest.
France’s national weather service, Météo-France, lifted an orange-level thunderstorm alert Friday for all southeastern departments that had previously been under the warning. Earlier, forecasters had cautioned residents about the threat of large hailstones and powerful wind gusts stretching from the Massif Central mountain range to the Alps.
