32 Dead, 50 Missing in Storm in South France : Floods: Wall of water sweeps through ancient town, killing 21.

VAISON-LA-ROMAINE, France â€”  This nation’s deadliest storm in 34 years killed at least 32 people, including 21 in an ancient town devastated by a flash flood, officials said Wednesday. Hundreds of rescue workers searched for nearly 50 missing people.

Torrential rains and violent winds swept through southern France on Tuesday, ruining crops and damaging roads and buildings in the scenic Vaucluse region, a popular destination for French and foreign vacationers.

“It’s an indescribable tragedy,� said Claude Haut, mayor of Vaison-la-Romaine, the hardest-hit town.

Weather forecasters said the same storm system struck England on Wednesday, swelling rivers in the south and central regions. No deaths were reported there, but highways and rail lines were flooded, and thousands of commuters were stranded.

Italian authorities reported two people were missing when flash floods swept the Savona area on the northern coast near the French border.

French officials put the number of deaths in northern Vaucluse at 27, including five Belgians. Twenty-one of the victims died in Vaison-la-Romaine, a town of 5,000 dating to Roman times, 25 miles north of Avignon.

Four were killed in the town of Aubignon and two in Gigondas.

Of the nearly 50 people reported missing, five were Belgian, two German and one Dutch, officials in Avignon said.

Elsewhere, a postman drowned in the Drome region and four people were killed in Ardeche, between Lyon and Avignon, including a young man who tried to save his father from the swollen Ardeche River, authorities said.

It was the highest death toll from a storm in France since October, 1958, when 36 people were killed by flooding in the neighboring Gard region.

In Vaison-la-Romaine, witnesses recounted seeing camping vans being carried down the Ouveze River with people inside screaming for help. A wall of water swept through the town about 4 p.m. Tuesday, causing damage as much as 50 feet above the normal level of the river.

The town hall was converted Wednesday into an emergency center, where residents sought information on the missing and obtained food and clothing.

Violent winds toppled at least a dozen buildings in Vaison-la-Romaine, officials said, and thousands of people were evacuated after electricity and water were cut off.

“Some areas looked like they’d been bombarded--everything was destroyed,� said Interior Minister Paul Quiles, who inspected the damage and visited a temporary morgue set up in a gymnasium.

“It was horrible--the little coffins of 5- and 6-year-old children,� he said.

About 1,500 rescue workers, including soldiers, used helicopters and amphibious craft to search for the missing in northern Vaucluse, which was drenched by flash floods. Some bodies found Wednesday were entangled in branches on the banks of the Ouveze, police said.

Officials said river levels were stabilizing but that the situation would not return to normal until the end of the week.

Quiles said the Vaucluse region will be declared a disaster zone and ordered the release of $1 million in emergency funds.

In England, the National Rivers Authority said flooding in north London began when tributaries of the upper River Brent overran their banks. More than four feet of water flooded several streets, stalling cars and trucks.

Police used dinghies to evacuate four pensioners from their homes, and another 21 people were evacuated from a retirement home. Hundreds of homes were without electrical power for several hours.

Also hit were regions of southern and central England, where some villages were virtually cut off by flooded roads.

Postman Jim Goldsmith borrowed a customer’s canoe to finish his deliveries after abandoning his van in floods at Papworth St. Agnes, 55 miles north of London,the Royal Mail said.