Authorities say hundreds of people have been evacuated as torrential rains cause flooding and landslides.
Fierce storms and torrential rains that hit France, Switzerland and Italy this weekend have killed seven people, local authorities said.
Three people aged between 70 and 80 died on Saturday in the Aube region in northeastern France when a tree crushed the car they were travelling in during strong winds, local authorities told AFP news agency on Sunday.
A fourth passenger is in critical care, he added.
In neighbouring Switzerland, four people have died and two others are missing, local police say, after violent storms and melting snow triggered flooding and landslides in two southern cantons.
Three of the victims died early Sunday in a landslide in the remote Maggia Valley in the Italian-speaking Alpine canton of Ticino, police said in a statement.
The three bodies were recovered in the Fontana area of the Maggia valley and are currently being identified, while another person is missing in the Lavizzara arm of the valley, Ticino authorities said.
Difficult rescue efforts
Civil security services said “several hundred” people were evacuated in the Valais and roads were closed after the Rhône and its tributaries overflowed in different places.
Emergency services were assessing the best way to evacuate 300 people who had arrived for a football tournament in Peccia, while almost 70 more were being evacuated from a holiday camp in the town of Mogno.
Bad weather was making rescue efforts especially difficult, police had previously said, with several valleys inaccessible and cut off from the power grid.
The federal alert system also reported that part of the canton was without drinking water.
Extreme rainfall also hit southeastern Switzerland last weekend, killing one person and causing significant damage.
In the Aosta Valley in northern Italy, internet users shared images of spectacular flooding and swollen rivers rushing down mountainsides.
Scientists say climate change driven by human activity is increasing the severity, frequency and duration of extreme weather events such as floods and storms.
