'All records broken' as Storm Nils leaves swaths of southwest France under water

The flood alert system in France has been working at a record pace as relentless rain over the past month has saturated soils.

"For 30 days we have been in continuous orange or red alert somewhere on the national territory," Lucie Chadourne-Facon, director of Vigicrues, told AFP, referring to the two highest alert levels.

"That is 81 departments in alert simultaneously for 154 rivers, so we have exceeded all our records," she said.

Chadourne-Facon said soil moisture had also reached a record since data collection began in 1959. 

"We are facing a generalised flood situation across the entire country because all the soils are saturated everywhere" and have "lost their infiltration capacity", she said.

"As a result, today rivers are extremely sensitive to the slightest precipitation, the slightest rainfall that hits the country, and they react very quickly," she added.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)