50 Feared Dead After Storm Floods French Campground : Tents, Trailers Swept Away by Surprise Torrent

Violent rainstorms sent waves of water and mud crashing down an Alpine mountain into a campground filled with Bastille Day vacationers, and 50 people were feared dead, authorities said today.

Witnesses said the torrent smashed into tents, trailers and recreation vehicles so suddenly that many of the victims were unable to escape.

Hundreds of rescue workers dug through dirt and rocks in the campsite near the scenic French Alpine village of Grand Bornand, and by midday the official death toll had reached 22, with 28 others missing and feared dead. Ten people were seriously injured and dozens were treated for shock.

The Haute Savoie regional government said 17 of the dead were found at the campsite or along the route of the Borne, a narrow, fast-running stream that cuts through the campground.

Swiss police said they found an 18th body 30 miles away in the Arve, a river fed by the Borne. Officials in Annecy said Swiss police reported seeing four more bodies that had yet to be recovered.

The storms struck Tuesday night, Bastille Day, at the end of a long holiday weekend.

Initial reports said an earthen dam above the campsite had collapsed, but authorities later said a blockage of rocks, trees and debris had formed and gave way Tuesday evening, sending torrents of water down the mountain.

The Borne later receded, leaving the campsite covered with mud and debris.

“I saw five campers, one with a woman and two children trapped inside their trailer, tossed by the flood before being swallowed up,” said an unidentified Belgian camper.

A resident of Grand Bornand told the newspaper Le Monde of seeing “caravans and cars floating by at the rate of every 10 seconds.”

More than 250 rescue workers searched for the missing until about midnight Tuesday. Another 250 joined the effort at first light today, lifting fallen trees, opening smashed vehicles buried under more than three feet of mud and searching door to door among villagers for those reported missing by their families.

Officials said there were about 150 campers and 70 trailers in two adjacent tourist parks in the flat, grassy valley between two forested mountains. Grand Bornand is a winter ski resort popular with French and foreign tourists.

A mortuary was set up in Grand Bornand today and authorities began trying to identify the dead. Only nine were identified, all French citizens.

According to witnesses, five or six of the missing people were buried in the mud. Others were believed drowned, officials said.

Rescue workers, including police, firefighters and gendarmes, said efforts to find survivors were hampered because narrow mountain roads to the campsite were blocked by trees blown over in the storm that preceded the mud slide and flood.