A tornado described by officials as being “of rare intensity” ripped through the small village of Pomas in southern France on Monday afternoon, leaving a trail of destruction that residents say has changed their community overnight.

The storm tore through the Aude department in the country’s south, hitting Pomas — a village of around 1,000 people — hardest. Roofs were torn from houses, walls collapsed, trees were uprooted, and cars were flipped and crushed as the tornado cut its way through the village’s narrow streets.

By Tuesday morning, rescue crews were still combing through the wreckage, though authorities said no one was reported missing. Around 300 homes across the area sustained damage, according to regional officials, and at least 39 people were injured, two of them critically. Seventeen people required hospital treatment.

“A wartime situation

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For Pomas mayor Hervé Gine, the aftermath felt less like a natural disaster and more like an act of war. He told reporters he had the sensation of living through “a wartime situation,” describing streets strewn with roof tiles, shattered glass, and torn shutters.

Gine said it was “a miracle” that no one had died, adding that under slightly different circumstances the tornado could easily have caused several dozen fatalities. Footage circulating on social media, captured from the nearby village of Villefloure, showed the funnel cloud barrelling across open countryside before slamming into Pomas with startling speed.

France’s Interior Minister, Laurent Nunez, called the tornado “of rare intensity” in a post on social media, while the region’s deputy prefect, Marie-Hélène Bouissac, described it as “an exceptional and highly traumatic event” for the community.

A summer marked by extreme weather

Météo-France, the national weather agency, has noted that the country typically records a few dozen tornadoes each year, but stressed that the vast majority are far less destructive than the one that hit Pomas. Meteorologists are still assessing the storm’s exact strength, though early accounts point to it being among the most powerful tornadoes to strike France in recent years.

The disaster adds to what has already been a turbulent summer of extreme weather across France and the wider European continent. Numerous regions have faced a punishing combination of prolonged heatwaves, wildfires, and now violent, fast-forming storms — a pattern scientists have repeatedly linked to the broader effects of a warming climate, even as they caution that no single event can be attributed to climate change alone.

Local emergency services, supported by regional response teams, spent Tuesday assessing structural damage to homes, clearing fallen trees, and restoring power to residents left without electricity. Temporary shelter was arranged for families whose homes were rendered uninhabitable, while insurers in the region are expected to face a wave of claims in the coming weeks.

Community begins to regroup

Residents described the tornado’s arrival as sudden and terrifying, with many saying they had only seconds of warning before the storm hit. Neighbours have since been seen helping one another clear debris, salvage belongings, and check on elderly residents whose homes bore some of the worst damage.

Government officials, including representatives from the regional prefecture, are expected to visit Pomas in the coming days to assess the scale of recovery needed and determine what state support will be made available to affected households. Discussions are also underway regarding financial assistance for residents whose homes were destroyed or rendered unsafe for habitation.

While the physical rebuilding of Pomas is expected to take months, the psychological toll on residents — many of whom have lived in the village for generations — is likely to linger far longer. Local officials have pledged ongoing support, including access to counselling services for those affected by the trauma of the storm.

As the clean-up continues, the incident has reignited broader conversations in France about the country’s preparedness for increasingly unpredictable and severe weather events, and whether current building codes and emergency response systems are adequate for a climate that appears to be delivering more frequent extremes, even in regions unaccustomed to tornado activity.

For now, the people of Pomas are focused on the immediate task at hand: rebuilding a village that, in the space of a few violent minutes, was left almost unrecognisable.