The torrential rains come hot on the heels of a major heatwave.
RTS-SWI
Violent thunderstorms struck vast swathes of French-speaking Switzerland late Monday causing major flooding that prompted scores of evacuation requests.
The southwestern city of Sion was particularly hard hit with hundreds of cellars flooding in the wine-making region.
Office workers had to be evacuated by firefighters, according to Swiss Public Radio, RTS. Police recorded more than a thousand calls and evacuation requests in the span of two-hours.
Torrential rains also inundated the train station and water levels rose so high that cars got stuck in the streets of Sion, the capital of canton Valais.
Rain currents filled with rubble and stones littered roads and chocked off major arteries, including the scenic Great St. Bernard Pass which snakes across the Alps connecting Switzerland to Italy.
Repair works are still underway.
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Heavy rains and violent winds pummeled the Lake Geneva area with wind gusts of over 90 km/hour hitting Le Bouveret and 40 mm or rain documented in Prangins, according to MétéoSuisse.
In Vevey, a town on the northern shore of Lake Geneva, sailboats ran aground in front of the market square.
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Temperatures climb to record levels
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The town of Sion in southwestern Switzerland registered 36.2°C (97.2°Fahrenheit) on Sunday, according to the local weather station. The record for Sion is 37.8°C. And in 2003, temperatures rose to 41.5°C in southeastern Switzerland and 39.7°C in Geneva in 2015. Meteonews expects afternoon temperatures above 35°C and at least 20°C at night in lower-lying regions…
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Farmers want the government to introduce emergency measures to offset the problems for agricultural production caused by the ongoing heatwave.
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MeteoSwiss has issued a heat warning for the Italian-speaking region of Ticino, as the country continues to suffer the effects of the heat.
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