Two Dutch tourists - a 39-year-old man and a 10-year-old girl -- died after being hit by falling trees at separate campsites in the Landes department on the southwestern Atlantic coast, police said.

In the neighboring department of Pyrenees-Atlantiques, a 17-year-old boy was killed when he lost control of his scooter during a ferocious hail storm and hit an oncoming vehicle. His 14-year-old passenger was in serious condition in hospital.

Further north at a campsite near Saumur in the department of Maine-et-Loire, a man died of a heart attack brought on by the violent weather. A total of 70 people were injured in the storms, nine of them seriously, according to the emergency services.

More than 300,000 homes initially lost electricity, though the state-owned power company EDF said service had been restored to around 80 percent of them by midday Wednesday.

Meteorologists said that winds in some areas were as violent as during the storms that ravaged the country in December 1999, destroying vast areas of woodland and killing 92 people.

The gales moved on to the north toward Brittany and the Loire valley on Wednesday. Alert bulletins were issued in these areas, as well in the southern Gard department.

Environment Minister Roselyne Bachelot visited the Maine-et-Loire department on Wednesday, while Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was due in Biscarosse and other towns in the hard-hit Landes department on Thursday.

In the southwestern city of Bordeaux, where winds reached 150 kilometers (94 miles) an hour, roofs were damaged and hundreds of trees blown over, while in the wine-growing areas of Medoc, two people were struck by lightning.

In Biscarrosse alone, more than 3,500 holidaymakers were evacuated and lodged overnight in municipal halls and schools. Hundreds of firefighters and emergency workers rushed to the scene to provide assistance to those in need.

Many of the shaken campers said Wednesday they would be spending the rest of their vacations elsewhere.

Rail traffic was disrupted early Wednesday across southwestern France as a result of fallen trees on tracks and damaged power lines, but was back to near-normal by midday in most areas.

The storms brought temporary relief to a heat wave which has seen temperatures reach 40 degrees Centigrade (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and prompted widespread concerns about crop failure and forest fires.

Experts warned that even though spectacular amounts of water may fall in summer deluges such as these, they have little impact unless the rain is sustained over a long period.

TERRA.WIRE