A man is still missing after rising waters caused 119 children to be evacuated from the unauthorised site

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Two Germans whose group ran an unauthorised campsite in southern France that was hit by flash floods, forcing the emergency evacuation of 119 children, have been charged.

The men, who have not yet been named, were handed preliminary charges of involuntary injury aggravated by endangerment and creating a campsite without a permit, Eric Maurel, the Nimes prosecutor, said.

The newspaper Le Monde identified the two as the president and vice-president of the Jugendförderung Saint-Antonius group, which owned the land where the campsite was located, in the village of Saint-Julien-de-Peyrolas in the Gard region.

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The children were rapidly evacuated on Thursday when the rivers burst their banks. A handful were taken to hospital with minor injuries.

The two men were placed under judicial supervision and forbidden to visit the Gard region except to appear when summoned by judicial authorities and meet their lawyers, Maurel said. They were given 15 days to remove their possessions from the site.

Rescuers continued to search for a missing German monitor at the campsite, whose van was reportedly swept away in the flash floods. The children removed from the camp were among 1,600 evacuated, mostly preventively, in three regions on Thursday after torrential rains caused rivers and streams to overflow.

The campsite in Saint-Julien-de-Peyrolas was in a flood zone. Just 48 hours before the waters suddenly rose, municipal officials had warned the group of the dangers of remaining due to the threat of rising water levels, the prosecutor’s office said.