Avalanche Crashes Down Mt. Blanc, Damaging Chalets

A large avalanche of snow and ice crashed down part of Mt. Blanc, damaging chalets and cars in the Alps on Sunday, while floodwaters remained at near-record levels in northern France.

Two more people died Sunday, raising the death toll from a week of stormy weather in France to at least four. Three other people are missing.

Avalanche warnings were posted in the Alps and Pyrenees in the wake of heavy snow, though the new pack that fell over the weekend was welcomed by most ski resorts.

In the Pyrenees bordering Spain, a hiker died Sunday after he was trapped by a snow slide a day earlier.

The afternoon avalanche in the Alps dumped 50 feet of snow near Houches, a village in the Chamonix valley. It damaged 15 chalets, destroyed two cars and cut some power lines to Chamonix, but no injuries were reported.

In northern France, rivers swollen by heavy rain remained at flood stage, some nearly breaking records set in the 1920s.

More than 1,000 people have been evacuated, and electricity was cut off to thousands of residents in areas where transformers were flooded. The hardest-hit cities were Soissons and Compiegne.

In Paris, more roads along the Seine were closed as the river rose several feet above normal.

Rail traffic between France and Belgium remained problematic, and numerous highways were flooded.