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Troops and retirees join cleanup effort as France counts cost PARIS (AP) - Six thousand troops were deployed nationwide today and the national electricity company brought workers out of retirement as France tapped all its resources in a bid to clean up and restore power to millions of homes after this week's killer storms.
At least 68 people were killed in France - and 120 in Western Europe - after two fierce storms on Sunday and Tuesday.
In France, electricity pylons were torn down, millions of trees uprooted, cars smashed and houses left in ruins in the worst storm wreckage seen in at least 50 years.
After three days of turmoil, calm, clear skies returned today in most of the country, aiding the frantic cleanup.
At least two million homes - or an estimated five million people - remained without electricity today. The national power company, EDF, has admitted it cannot cope, appealing for aid from counterparts in Britain, Italy, Germany and Spain.
EDF, which mobilized 12,000 workers and others who recently retired, has said it is unlikely that all affected households will have power - and, therefore, heating - restored before the New Year.
In addition, France Telecom has said more than 400,000 French homes are without telephone services as local networks are starved of power.
``France has been wounded, and many French are faced with cruel hardship just when they were about to celebrate the end of the year and the millennium,'' President Jacques Chirac said Tuesday. ``The French family must now lick its wounds - and that's a national priority.''
Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot said extensive damage to the country's public transport network, caused mostly by fallen trees or flooding, would not be totally fixed before the end of the year.
No trains were running Tuesday from Paris to Bordeaux, and only one in three was servicing the east. But trains running north from the capital were almost back to normal, and the Eurostar service to London was unaffected. Similar disruption was forecast for today.
The European death toll was pushed up after snowstorms brought on by the same weather front caused avalanches Tuesday in western and central Austria, killing 12 people. Heavy snowfall in the French Alps also led to maximum avalanche alerts. A helicopter crashed in snow and fog in central Hungary, killing all four people aboard.
Since Sunday, 17 people have died in Germany, 13 in Switzerland and 6 in Spain.
Copyright 1999 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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