French Riviera flash floods kill four

Firemen in southeastern France search for the missing after flash floods.

At least four people are dead and several others unaccounted for after violent rain storms and floods pounded France's Mediterranean coast.

(SOUNDBITE) (French) LOCAL RESIDENT, SAYING:

"I have been living here for 45 years, but I have never seen something like this, and there has never been rises in the water levels like this in living memory."

Hundreds of firefighters and police have been mobilized since Thursday.

In the town of La Londe Les Maures, where two of the dead were found, the mayor says the city is doing what it can to build dikes and stop this from happening again.

Forecasters have downgraded their severe weather warnings, but more than a dozen districts in the south of France and Corsica, too, can expect heavy rains and winds until Saturday.