On September 22, 1992, the hundred-year flood of the Ouvèze devastated everything in its path in the Haut Vaucluse. Vaison-la-Romaine was ravaged by a torrent of water and mud. The human toll of these floods is heavy in the town: 37 dead out of the 46 victims identified in this Mediterranean episode.
It is a day and images that are forever marked in the memories of the inhabitants of Vaucluse and the South-East of France, such as an indelible mark. On September 22, 1992, in the middle of the afternoon, caravans and cars crashed on the Roman Bridge in Vaison-la-Romaine, swept away by a giant wave 17 meters high. The Ouvèze, this small river which flows in the departments of Drôme and Vaucluse to the Rhône, is in flood, it comes out of its bed swollen by the torrential rains which fell on the sector.
This centennial flood of the Ouvèze, which carries a torrent of mud, devastates everything in its path in the Haut Vaucluse. Of the 63 municipalities impacted, Vaison-la-Romaine will pay the heaviest price. The human toll is heavy: 37 dead out of the 46 victims identified. Witnesses to the tragedy, the inhabitants describe an apocalypse scene: the people, the houses, the trees swept away by this powerful tidal wave, the Théos district, its campsite, its craft area, its housing estate, located on the banks of the devastated Ouvèze, the Roman Bridge which resists the torrent of water and mud which assails it.
Drama timeline
The day before the tragedy, Monday September 21, 1992, Météo France issued a first warning bulletin at 3 p.m. to warn of the risk of heavy rainfall in the South-East of France. Intense Mediterranean episodes could be triggered. That same evening, the prefect of Vaucluse placed the security and protection forces on alert.
On the day of the tragedy, September 22, 1992, the forecast for “rainy-stormy episode of rare violence” is confirmed. During the morning, a first series of moderate showers sweeps the Ouvèze valley. It lasts a little less than two hours.
At noon, those present at the municipal campsite are alerted to the danger, but the establishment is not evacuated. The housing estate in the Théos district has not been evacuated either.
On the weather front, the calm will be short-lived, a second rainy-stormy episode, much more violent, hits the sector at the beginning of the afternoon. The total rainfall reaches 300 mm in Entrechaux and 179 mm in Vaison-la-Romaine, this represents the equivalent of 65% of the average annual rainfall recorded in Vaison. More than 100 million tons of water thus swell the Ouvèze and its tributaries. The river comes out of its bed.
The flood of the Ouvèze hits the housing estate in the Théos district of Vaison-la-Romaine around 4 p.m. Nearby, a campsite was also swept away by this torrent of mud which carried away everything in its path. It is in this sector that the rescuers will count the most victims. In the process, at the level of the Roman Bridge, a wave of 17 meters breaks. The bed of the Ouvèze is normally located fifteen meters below. Swept away, caravans, cars smash against the bridge.
Around 5 p.m., when the sky had calmed down and the sun had returned, the Vaucluse prefecture launched the Orsec plan: 300 firefighters and ten helicopters were sent to Vaison-la-Romaine. They fly over the disaster area to rescue the survivors, refugees on the roof of their house or hanging from branches above the waves, and search for possible victims. The banks of the Ouvèze are thus raked to the confluence of the Rhône, in a landscape of desolation.
Solidarity is organized quickly, while a burning chapel is erected in the gymnasium of the town where the relatives of the victims come to recognize the bodies, the day after the tragedy. On September 23, 1992, at the end of the afternoon, there was no more hope of finding survivorsbut the number of victims is not yet stopped.
Heavy assessment, trauma and questions
The final assessment of this dramatic September 22, 1992 will be established at 46 victims including 37 in Vaison-la-Romaine, not to mention the dozens of injured and the trauma. The material damage of this Mediterranean episode in the Ouvèze valley, dozens of houses destroyed or gutted, hundreds of vehicles good for scrap, will ultimately be estimated at 460 million euros.
This drama in Vaison-la-Romaine and in the Ouvèze valley is the consequence of a Mediterranean-type episoderecord rainfall in the basin of this small river: 179 mm of rain in the town on September 22, 1992, due to a violent storm stationed in the area for two hours, flattened against the foothills of Mont Ventoux.
But the construction in flood zones of Vaison-la-Romaine was also called into question: the installation of the campsite, a housing estate and a craft area, near the river.