450,000 homes in southern France without power after Nils storm

JAKARTA - Around 450,000 households in southern France experienced a power outage on Friday, February 13.

The blackout a day after the Nils storm hit triggered flooding and trees fell.

Citing AFP, French weather forecasters said this "very strong" storm disrupted power lines in southern France.

The country's electricity management company, Enedis, has deployed around 3,000 of its employees to try to solve the problem.

"Enedis has restored electricity services to 50 percent of the 900,000 customers who experienced power outages," the company wrote Friday morning.

Previously, Krisis Enedis Director, Herve Champenois, said his company had experienced a number of obstacles in the process of normalizing electricity in southern France.

"Floods make it difficult to repair because agricultural land is flooded and some roads are blocked," he said on Thursday local time.

This Nils storm that made southern France experience public transportation disruptions. People admitted to being surprised by the devastating impact of this disaster.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Ingrid, a florist in the city of Perpignan.

"A tree almost fell on my car - two seconds later and it would have happened," he continued.

"All night, you can hear tiles lifted, bins rolling down the street - it's crazy," said Eugenie Ferrier, 32, from the village of Roaillan near Bordeaux in the southwest.

Weather forecasters said the storm had moved east away from the French region on Thursday local time, although some areas were still on alert for flooding.