The body of a 74-year-old man who disappeared in Ardèche on Sunday morning after being swept away by floodwaters was found this Tuesday, November 18 in the early hours, announced the prefectural department. “Divers from the gendarmerie river brigade found the body of the middle-aged man on the banks of the Lavezon river, in the town of Meysse,” he said in a press release.
The search to find him was suspended overnight from Sunday to Monday and resumed at dawn Monday. The man in his seventies was swept away by flood waters on the Rieutord, a tributary of the Ardèche, in Saint-Vincent-de-Barrès, when the department was still under orange rain flood alert.
Only this man’s car was found several kilometers downstream; “in a very degraded condition”, explained the prefecture.
He wanted to “remove his vehicle from the bank”
Some fifteen police and more than 40 firefighters were involved in the search, including 10 water rescuers who were dredging the Rieutord, the same source said in the afternoon, confirming information from the daily Le Dauphiné Libéré. The Civil Security Helicopter supported them.
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The 74-year-old resident of Saint-Vincent-de-Barrès wanted to “move his vehicle away from the river bank” when he saw, at around 10:30, the water level in Rieutord “rising very sharply”, explained the mayor of the small town, Paul Savatier. His wife raised the alarm. In the afternoon, the prefecture indicated that the man and his vehicle had been swept away by the river which then flooded.
