Nature in France showed a force yesterday that hasn't been seen in a long time. Powerful thunderstorms struck the central and eastern parts of the country, leaving two dead behind them. In Saint-Victurnien, in the Haute-Vienne department, a woman was killed when a tree fell on her. In Dolomieu, in the Isère department, a man was found dead in a workshop that caught fire after a lightning strike.

Thirty departments in central and eastern France were under an orange alert level because of the storm and the danger of large hail. Around 53,000 households were left without power as the storm moved across the country. And then came the scene that went around every screen.

Near Saint-Étienne, in the Loire department, a supercell - an exceptionally powerful storm - created what meteorologists called a „mini-tornado”. The whirlwind flipped trucks on the A72 motorway, uprooted trees and tore off roofs. French meteorologists explained that the tornado formed inside the supercell, intensified by the collision of very warm and cooler air masses at altitude.

Firefighters and rescue crews had nearly 230 interventions in the Loire department alone after this wave of storms. A figure that says more than any description - when a single service has to rush to two hundred and thirty locations in a few hours, then it's clear how widely the storm struck.

And while France counts the damage, it's hard not to ask ourselves - how ready are we? Every summer brings stronger and more unpredictable storms across the whole continent, and the Balkans are no exception on that map. The question isn't whether a storm like this will reach us, but whether our services would rush out to two hundred interventions in a few hours just as fast.