Rescue teams were out in force yesterday after the fiercest winter storm in years left at least 58 dead in western Europe, with France by far the worst hit.
France's Atlantic seaboard was pummelled by the storm dubbed Xynthia, which unleashed gale force winds and torrential rains on Sunday, prompting the government to declare a national emergency.
The toll in France rose to 48 dead and at least 30 missing yesterday and more than half a million homes were without power in the deadliest storm to have battered France since 1999, officials said.
At least five people died in neighbouring Germany, three in Spain, one in Portugal and one in Belgium.
More than 9,000 French firefighters and emergency workers backed by helicopters were deployed yesterday to try to reach stranded residents, mostly in the Vendee and Charente regions of western France.
Rescue teams took to boats to reach flooded houses whose residents were reported missing in the town of L'Aiguillon-sur-Mer. Hundreds of families slept overnight in shelters set up in schools and dance halls.
About 30 people were admitted to hospital, regional officials said.
The storm hit France early on Sunday in the middle of the night with eight-metre waves that sent residents scurrying onto rooftops. The wind reached speeds of 150 kilometres per hour.
Georges Van Parys, 72, described heaving his disabled wife Mauricette, 68, onto the roof of their car to escape the floodwaters, where they waited for six hours to be rescued.
"I was in my underpants, my wife was in her night dress," he said. "We don't even have any papers or any money."
President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday visited L'Aiguillon-sur-Mer, where he mourned "a national catastrophe, a human drama with a dreadful toll" and said "the urgent thing is to support the families who have people missing or dead".
Mr Sarkozy said he was making three million euros of emergency funds available for the victims and promised that electricity would be restored by today.
The European Union said it was ready to offer support for the countries affected.
French farms and fisheries were hard hit and Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Marie promised compensation from a national disaster relief fund.
Some 500,000 homes were still without electricity yesterday morning after the storm caused a black-out in one million households, the ERDF electricity supplier said.
Air traffic began returning to normal at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport on Sunday evening, a spokesman said, after around a quarter of flights were cancelled during the day.
Winds of 175 kilometres per hour were recorded at the tip of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but Xynthia fell short of the record 200-kph levels of a deadly 1999 storm which killed 92 people.