survivors still in shock

In images filmed by survivors, the hamlet of La Bérarde (Isère) is devastated. A rescuer was airlifted to the roof of a chalet, almost completely submerged. Inside, a miraculous couple had been waiting for seven hours, Belgians who had come for a few days. “Fortunately there was a mezzanine, otherwise no one talked about us anymore. We could hear the stones hitting the back wall of the chalet. (…) If a wall breaks[ait], it was the whole framework. And we were below the frame.”says Didier Frans. “Personally, I was looking for a way out, in every sense of the word”, adds his wife, Marie. A rescuer finally came to their aid.

Around a hundred people were evacuated, residents and other vacationers. Régine Acqueberge and her husband came in a van from Mayenne. They were welcomed in a first chalet then a second, before leaving them and encouraging their owners to do the same, before it was taken away. It is currently impossible to return to the hamlet of La Bérarde. Some survivors do not wish to return there, and were repatriated home during the day.