Just three minutes to wreck a town. Now the long clear up begins

Tuesday's papers here in France of course are full of pictures and stories of the devastation brought on the town of Hautmont and the surrounding areas of Boussières-sur-Sambre and Neuf-Mesnil in the north of the country on the night of Sunday to Monday after a tornado struck, killing three people and injuring 18.

Around 700 homes were damaged or completely destroyed, and in Hautmont alone - a town of 16,000 people - at least 500 homes to between 2,000-3,000 people were hit according to local officials.

An initial €300, 000 has been made available in emergency aid, with the promise of more to come, and a trauma team is on its way to help those who are only now returning early from their holidays, to cope with the devastation they're likely to face.

The local authorities with the help of the Red Cross are busy providing temporary shelter and food for those without accommodation or whose homes are deemed inhabitable.

Of course the size of the event was by no means on the same sort of scale as some weather disasters in other parts of the world. But tornados are a rare occurrence in Europe, let alone in northern France, and when they happen, few are prepared. And the impact on the local community has been enormous.

The pictures of upturned cars, roofs stripped completely of tiles, trees uprooted and some buildings no more than a pile of rubble tell a tale in themselves of how in just three minutes, winds of up to 220 kilometres an hour and driving rain were able to wreak such havoc.

The personal accounts also tell a moving story and now, after the initial shock of what happened, they've started emerging.

One resident told the national daily, Liberation, how he couldn't believe what he was seeing at first.

"To begin with I thought it was a small storm, just the same as we're used to," Julian Lenoir told the paper. " But then I saw what was flying past the window outside, I got hold of my little brother and hid in one of the bedrooms at the back of the house."

Another inhabitant was just thankful his family was safe, although his daughter had been hurt slightly in the tornado.

"The wardrobe fell on my daughter. If she had been asleep, she would have been dead," Mohamed Gharbi told the paper. "I said to my wife the house is about to take off - and we all went and hid in the bathroom for safety."

While three people died as a direct result of the tornado, it was sadly all too much for one 76-year-old resident, who local officials confirmed had taken his own life after losing his home.

Visiting the town on Monday, the interior minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, went so far as to describe Hautmont as looking as though a bomb had hit it. And she should know what she's talking about. Before taking over her current job, Alliot-Marie was this country's defence minister.

"I have rarely seen devastation such as this outside a war zone," Alliot-Marie told the press.

"It resembles scenes I've witnessed at certain moments in southern Lebanon," she added. "One has the impression that the place had been bombed."

During her visit Alliot-Marie promised €300,000 in immediate emergency relief and said a team of psychologists and trauma specialist would be sent to the area.

The government also plans to hold a special session before the end of the month to discuss a more comprehensive aid package and to make certain that those who have lost their homes and many of their possessions don't have to struggle with insurance claims for compensation.

While the clear up has begun and the emergency services are busy ensuring power supplies are up and running and the area made secure, and the insurance companies are already on the scene assessing the extent of the damage, there are also some other, less welcome visitors to the town of Hautmont.

The plain curious or "disaster tourists" as one local woman described them on national radio, who've come to see first hand the misfortune of others. They're apparently "not getting in the way or hampering the clear up", she said, but "they're there, watching and looking."