Late-winter storm in northwest of France beaches a Dutch cargo ship on coast of France
March 10, 2008
The Artemis, a 289-foot Dutch cargo liner, ran aground early Monday morning on the beach of Sables-d’Olonne, in the Vendée region of France, due to furious weather conditions, according to French weather service information.
The Artémis was approaching the port, when 40 mph winds and a strong swell with waves of up to 20 feet pushed it towards the coast, approximately a third of a mile away from the pier it was heading for. The six members of crew and the captain remained on board while waiting for assistance to get back on the water, set for around 6:15 PM with the high tide.
The Dutch cargo liner was sailing empty, and so luckily the accident caused no pollution, according to the French maritime prefecture of the Atlantic. No one was injured in connection with the incident.
At the same time, the search resumed Monday in the North west of France for the body of a young man fallen into the ocean on Sunday near Brest while trying to safeguard his small boat against the storm. So far, this man in France is the only reported casualty of the storm, which also affected Great Britain.
Both sea and air transport were heavily disrupted by the storm. The port of Dover, the UK’s nearest port to France, was closed Monday morning because of gusts reaching 86 MPH. At London’s Heathrow airport, British Airways cancelled about thirty medium-haul flights, as well as ten at Gatwick.
Emergency workers and firefighters in France conducted around 200 rescue and support operations in the Finistere region of France and 224 in France’s Morbihan region, mostly related to downed trees and especially flooded homes.
The violent storm out of the south-west coincided with the spring tides to cause rivers near the coast to breach their banks, according to a French prefecture in the region. In Morbihan, more than 140 houses were flooded, mainly on Gâvres and Larmor-Plage, two coastal towns in the southeast, and Sarzeau near Vannes. About thirty houses, 16 cars and a restaurant were flooded in the town of Port-Launay, near Châteaulin (in the Finistere region) where the river of the Alder overflowed. Météo France reported wind speeds of 96 MPH in Raz (in the Finistere department), 85 MPH in Vannes (Morbihan), 76 MPH in La Hague (Seine-Maritime) and the Ile d’Yeu (the Vendée). More gale-force winds were expected in the north of France in the afternoon with gusts of up to 80 MPH, according to Météo France. An “orange” storm alert remains in force until midnight on Tuesday, according to Météo France.
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