Deadly bad weather in the Gard: the 12-year-old child still wanted after the discovery of the lifeless body of his little sister

De nombreux équipages cynophiles sont mobilisés. Midi Libre – Mikael Anisset

The teenager has been missing since Saturday March 9, after the vehicle in which he was with his family was swept away by torrential waters in the town of Dions. The remains of her little sister were found this Tuesday, March 12.

 

The – stunning – news fell this Tuesday March 12 at 1:30 p.m. The lifeless body of a 4-year-old little girl, corresponding to the description of the one missing for more than 60 hours in Dions, in the Gard, was discovered two kilometers downstream, on the left bank of the Gardon in recession, in the town of ;nbsp;Russan-Sainte-Anastasie.

Saturday March 9 at 11:30 p.m., a little girl and her family were in their vehicle when it was swept away by torrential waters on a submersible bridge. Despite the dark night, the power of the current and the risks for their own lives, the firefighters managed to save the mother who was apparently at the wheel of the car.

Research on land, in water and from the air

Since then, uninterrupted searches, mobilizing firefighters and gendarmes from numerous departments, had initially made it possible to find the family Citroën C3 empty of any occupants, then , Monday March 11 around 10 a.m., the remains of a man subsequently identified as his spouse.

Tuesday March 12, an exceptional search device deployed simultaneously on land, in the water and from the air, was still in place to try to find, in the Gardon in recession and on its banks, the little girl of this couple from Gard, as well as the 12-year-old boy of the man found dead in the water on Monday.

Identification in progress

As part of these new search operations carried out over a much larger area than the day before, and covering the sectors of Dions/Russan, Pont-Saint-Nicolas, and Collias/Pont-du -Gard/Remoulins, 70 firefighters including 30 white water rescuers and 10 dog crews trained in “questage”, namely the search for living people without a reference odor, were mobilized.

Despite the decline, the current remains very powerful in the Gardon which emerged from its bed during the bad weather that occurred on the night of Saturday March 9 to Sunday March 10. Midi Libre – Mikael Anisset

Alongside them, around forty gendarmes from Gard and their comrades divers from the nautical brigades of Martigues (13) and Marseillan (34) participated in the operations . 

Around 1 p.m., it was three soldiers carrying out a pedestrian survey who came across the lifeless body of a little girl at the edge of the water and whose formal identification was still in progress on Tuesday March 12 at the end of the day.

Water level drop

Following this tragic discovery, General Eric Chuberre, commander of the Gard Gendarmerie Group, spoke, not without emotion: " A moment difficult, very heavy, which leads us to think about families. This is a moment of pain and compassion."

The soldier continued indicating that the area where the body was discovered (barely 1km downstream of the Dions submersible bridge), had already been flown over and even searched on several occasions, notably the same morning . And specified that it was indeed the drop in the water level that allowed the discovery of the remains of this little girl.

Looking serious, General Eric Chuberre expressed his compassion for the families. of the Midi Libre – Mikael Anisset

On Wednesday March 13, the search will once again continue relentlessly  in the bed and on the banks of the Gardon where white water rescuers will be deployed, to try to find the teenager still missing this Tuesday March 12 in the early evening.

If the hope of finding him alive diminishes by the hour, these operations will focus primarily on the Russan-Sainte-Anastasie sector. This area in which were discovered, during the disappointment, the family vehicle washed away by the water, then the remains of his father and his half-sister.

Since Monday, the operations of « rescue» become « search » are managed by the gendarmerie under the authority of the public prosecutor of Nîmes. This system, exceptional in terms of human and material resources, and put in place to try to find as quickly as possible the teenager still missing, is being carried out within the framework of an open judicial investigation by the head of « disturbing disappearance »

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