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Storms leave deaths and havoc across France

Days of unusually heavy rainfall across France, forecast to ease as of Wednesday, have left four dead in weather-related accidents and several people injured after a waterlogged embankment collapsed causing a Paris suburban train to tip over, while homes in parts of the north-east of the country were damaged by flooding.

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Seven people were injured on Tuesday when a landslip overturned a train on the Paris regional rail network. The accident was caused by storms that have hit the Ile de France and much of the rest of the country, leading to flooding and emergency calls in several areas, reports Radio France Internationale.

Three carriages were overturned on the RER B line between Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse and Courcelle-sur-Yvette, south-west of Paris, transport minister Elisabeth Borne told France Info radio.

Heavy rain caused an embankment to collapse just before 5am, leading the carriages to derail and tip over.

Three of the seven injured, one of them a pregnant woman, were taken to hospital, while the others were able to go home.

None of the injuries was serious.

Most of the north of the country and some of the south-west was on orange storm alert on Tuesday, following a week in which four people died in weather-related accidents.

Read more of this AFP report published by RFI.