The death toll from flash floods in southwest France has nearly doubled to 13.

Interior Ministry spokesman Frederic de Lanouvelle said one other person is missing and five others are seriously hurt after flash floods tore through towns, turning streams into raging torrents.

He said nine of the 13 dead were clustered in one town, Trebes, in the Aude region. Residents watch the waters after flash floods in the town of Villegailhenc (Fred Lancelot/AP)

The official said the death toll could still rise further.

Some people had to be helicoptered to safety from the roofs of their homes as overnight storms dumped several months of rain in just a few hours.

Waters swept through roads and streams became raging torrents as the equivalent of several months of rain fell overnight in the space of hours.- Press Association </s> French Interior Ministry: 13 killed, 1 missing, 5 seriously injured by floods in southwest France

PARIS (AP) — French Interior Ministry: 13 killed, 1 missing, 5 seriously injured by floods in southwest France. </s> At least 5 killed in heavy rains in Spain’s Mallorca (video)

According to reports more than 20 centimeters of rain fell in just four hours

At least five people were killed in flash flooding on the Spanish island of Mallorca late on Tuesday, according to police, and at least nine others were reported missing.

Spain’s National Police confirmed on social media that five people had been killed in the heavy rains in the municipality of Sant Llorenc, and urged people to avoid driving in the Llevant area on the east of the island.

Local media reported that at least another 12 people were still missing following the downpours, but emergency services declined to confirm the figure to Reuters.

According to reports more than 20 centimeters of rain fell in just four hours.

“My solidarity and support goes out to the families and friends of victims and all those affected by these tragic floods,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Twitter. </s> Flash floods tore through towns in southwest France, turning waterways into raging torrents that killed at least 13 people, nine of them in just one town, authorities said Monday. People had to be helicoptered to safety from the roofs of their homes as overnight storms dumped the equivalent of several months of rain in just a few hours.

Worst hit was the town of Trebes, east of the medieval walled city of Carcassonne. The rains that swept in from the Mediterranean killed nine people there, Interior Ministry spokesman Frederic de Lanouvelle said. He told BFMTV that the floods in the Aude region also killed four other people in other locations, left one person missing and seriously injured five others.

In the town of Villegailhenc, witness Ines Siguet said the waters rose so quickly that people were stranded on the roofs of their homes and had to be helicoptered to safety. (AP)

See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Twitter and Tumblr. </s> Paris — At least three people are still missing after some of the worst flash floods in a century devastated towns and villages in France's southwestern Aude region, authorities say.

The government said it was spending millions of euros to revamp technology at the state weather forecasting agency, after some residents were quoted in the media raising questions about the speed of its alerts.

Officials originally said 13 people died in the floods that raged from Sunday night to Monday morning. On Tuesday they revised the figures to 11 dead and three people missing.

The downpours and floods hit a region near the medieval hilltop city of Carcassonne and dotted with stone villages on a sweep of land wedged between two mountain ranges and the Mediterranean.

Mud-swamped village streets were strewn with upended cars and debris after raging rivers broke their banks. Water rose to the first floor of some dwellings.

One of the worst-hit spots was the remote village of Trebes, where an Islamist attacker killed a gendarme and three people from the area at a supermarket in March.

The equivalent of seven months of rain fell in a matter of hours while most people were asleep.

Justice minister Nicole Belloubet said the state would fund a new supercalculator that would help to "fine-tune" weather predictions and would be on line in a year and a half.

She did not respond directly to residents' questions in the media about whether the Meteo France forecasting agency could have issued its red-alert warning earlier on Monday, and whether that would have made any difference. There was no immediate statement from the agency.

Environment minister Francois de Rugy told Europe 1 radio station on Tuesday that there would be no cover-up if there were any shortcomings in the system, but that perfect prediction of such violent weather bursts was extremely difficult.

"Weather forecasting is not an exact science," he said. </s> PARIS (AP) - French officials say flash floods that swept through the southwest Aude region largely claimed elderly victims, who were seemingly caught off guard by the sudden torrents.

The Aude regional government and the Interior Ministry in Paris said Tuesday that the death toll from the flooding overnight Sunday to Monday had risen to 13 and that three people were still listed as missing.

The region's top local official, Alain Thirion, said on BFMTV that flood victims were mainly older people who were "surprised by the amount of rain."

Thirion said that in Trebes, the town with the most deaths, the Aude River quickly swelled from about knee-height to a destructive flood that ended up being over 6.5 meters (21 feet) deep.

An helicopter flies over the town of Villegailhenc, southern France, after flash floods Monday, Oct.15, 2018. Flash floods tore through towns in southwest France, turning streams into raging torrents that authorities said killed several people and seriously injured at least five others. (AP Photo/Fred Lancelot)

French soldiers patrol after flash floods in the town of Villegailhenc, southern France, Monday, Oct.15, 2018. Flash floods tore through towns in southwest France, turning streams into raging torrents that authorities said killed several people and seriously injured at least five others. (AP Photo/Fred Lancelot) </s> The search continues for missing people following flash flooding events in Spain, Italy, and France.

Ten people died in Majorca, Spain, including two British citizens. Three more remain unaccounted for, including a five-year-old child.

Elsewhere, torrential rain and flooding killed a number of people caught in their cars during floods.

Two people died in Sainte-Maxime on France's south coast, while a woman was found dead in Sardinia.

The two British victims of the Majorca floods have been named locally as Anthony and Delia Green, a pair of holidaymakers in their 70s.

They were discovered in their taxi, which had been swept away by the water near the tourist town of Sant Llorenç. The body of the taxi driver was discovered nearby.

More than one hundred rescue workers searched through the night for the missing five-year-old boy. He is believed to have been in a car with his mother, who is among the victims.

His sister, who was also in the car, survived and was rescued.

The other two missing people are German nationals.

Local newspaper Diario de Mallorca reports that as of Thursday morning, 323 people are searching for the survivors - a combination of police, emergency responders, and military personnel.

Meanwhile, the cleanup continues in the badly hit town of Sant Llorenç.

The world's number one tennis player, Rafael Nadal, has opened the doors of his tennis academy in the next town over, Manacor, and was photographed taking part in the cleanup effort as a volunteer.

Nadal was born in Manacor. He tweeted his condolences to victims' families, calling it a "sad day for Majorca".

Swept into the sea in France

In France, the rise of the river Garonnette in Saint-Maxime caused five cars to be swept away by the nearby sea.

One of the cars had its headlights on, and witnesses said a person was behind the wheel at the time.

On Thursday morning, French broadcaster BFMTV said divers had discovered the vehicle in the water, and announced two deaths.

The victims have not been identified, but are understood to have been two passengers from the same vehicle.

Saint-Maxime lies in the Var region, where local authorities had urged people not to take to the flooded roads and seek shelter during the heavy rainfall.

BFMTV said that 210mm (8in) of rain fell on Wednesday night - two months' worth of normal rainfall. Search and rescue teams were forced to suspend their work overnight, resuming on Thursday morning.

The regional leader, Jean-Luc Videlaine, warned that the death toll may rise.

In Italy, the Cagliari area of Sardinia has also been hit by bad weather, and one woman was found dead on Thursday.

She was declared missing on Wednesday night, after her car became trapped by the flooding.

Italian news agency Ansa named her as 45-year-old Tamara Maccario, and said she and her family had left their home near a river over fear of the impending floodwater. The vehicle was swept away at about midnight on Wednesday.

Ansa reports that one of the woman's daughters was found clinging to a tree, while two other children and their father were found in two separate homes nearby.

Ms Maccario's body was found on Thursday morning. Another man has also been reported missing.

Large parts of Cagliari remain underwater, demonstrated in a video posted by Italian emergency responders.

Roads and bridges have also been damaged.

Dozens of people have been evacuated, and several roads have been closed due to either collapse or dangerously high water levels. </s> VILLEGAILHENC, France (Reuters) - At least 12 people died in southwestern France on Monday when some of the worst flash floods in a century turned rivers into raging torrents that engulfed homes and swept away cars.

Up to seven months’ rain fell in just a few hours overnight, local officials said, catching sleeping residents by surprise and isolating villages.

Several deaths were in the town of Trebes, which sits between a canal and two rivers, including the Aude.

As the death toll rose and the extent of the damage became clear, President Emmanuel Macron decided to hold off on an already-delayed reshuffle of his cabinet.

“It’s like a war zone. The village is more or less cut off from the outside world,” said Jean-Jacques Garros, a resident of Villegailhenc, one of the hardest hit areas.

The Interior Ministry initially put the number of deaths at 13 before revising the toll downwards.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe flew to the disaster zone to meet with emergency service personnel. Some 350 firefighters were involved in rescue operations, a number which will double as more are drafted in to deal with the aftermath.

Television pictures showed churning, muddy rivers that had uprooted trees, knocked over concrete power pylons and tore up roads in the southern region of Aude, near the medieval hilltop city of Carcassonne.

Nine helicopters were scrambled to rescue people from the roofs of their homes as rough weather complicated operations earlier in the day. Thousands of people have been evacuated from the area.

Among the worst hit were the villages of Conques-sur-Orbiel, Villegailhenc and Villardonnel, where the water rose as high as the first-floor windows of some houses. The Aude region is a popular tourist destination with old towns and villages in its hilly peaks and land stretching down to the Mediterranean.

The flash floods struck without warning. At least one victim was carried away by raging waters while sleeping, according to Alain Thirion, the prefect of Aude.

Schools were shut and residents told to stay at home.

The Vigicrues agency, which tracks water levels in France, said the flooding was nearing a peak last seen in 1891.

Torrential downpours are not uncommon in France at this time of year, but meteorologists have said that exceptionally warm sea water along the Mediterranean coast may have intensified the rains.

The year so far is France’s warmest since 1900, according to the state meteorological service. </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Several months' of rain hit France's southern Aude region, causing multiple fatalities

At least 10 people have been killed by flash floods in the Aude region of southern France.

Local authorities say several months' worth of rain fell in just a few hours overnight, leaving roads blocked in some areas.

A nun was swept away by the River Aude, local broadcaster BFMTV reports.

Separately, a policewoman attending to a weather-related traffic accident in the town of Albi was hit and killed by a motorist.

The death toll has been revised down from 13, France's interior ministry explained, because of an error which meant some of the dead had been counted twice.

Alain Thirion, the prefect of Aude, said people were stranded on rooftops and would have to be evacuated by air because it was too dangerous by boat.

One person was injured, he added, when a house collapsed in the locality of Cuxac.

The floods are the worst the Aude river has seen in more than 100 years, according to the weather monitoring service Vigicrues.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Hundreds of emergency service workers are taking part in rescue efforts

Seven helicopters and 700 emergency service workers have been deployed, according to France's Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, who has also visited the area.

An angry resident of Villegailhenc told the prime minister there had been a lack of public information, including from the media, when flooding hit in the early hours.

People on social media have also been sharing photos showing the extent of the damage to homes and streets in the area.

The BBC's Chris Bockman says heavy rain in the region is not uncommon at this time of year, but it has been exacerbated by growing numbers of homes being built on flood plains.

Residents of the worst-hit areas have been urged to stay inside their homes by emergency services and local authorities, who have issued a red alert.

In Trèbes, floodwater is as high as seven metres (23ft), local authorities say. Footage from the early hours of Monday shows the rising waters.

All roads are inaccessible to the north of Carcassonne municipality and schools are shut, authorities say.

A bridge was torn down and carried away by the force of the water in Villegailhenc.

An amber warning for flooding has also been issued for the nearby regions of Aveyron, Haute-Garonne, Hérault, Pyrénées-Orientales and Tarn.

The region is popular with tourists, many of whom are drawn to the medieval hilltop city of Carcassonne. </s> At least two people have died when several cars were swept away by flash floods triggered by heavy rain in southern France.

Five cars were swept away when a small local river flooded in the coastal town of Sainte-Maxime, local administration chief Jean-Luc Videlaine earlier told broadcaster BFMTV.

Helicopters and police teams searched the area which received nearly 200mm of rain overnight.

Sainte-Maxime is just north of the well-known resort town of Saint-Tropez on France's Mediterranean coast.
The death toll of the heavy floods in France rises to 14, while another person is missing.