This is the terrifying moment a giant 'tsunami cloud' slammed into a French beach as a raging new 45C heatwave hits Europe.
Footage from the coastline in Hendaye filmed on Sunday shows beachgoers frantically escaping the galerne — a violent meteorological phenomenon characterised by an abrupt drop in temperature and fierce, northwesterly winds.
Hundreds of tourists on the Basque coast could be seen anxiously grabbing their surfboards, rubber rings and towels as they rushed to safety.
‘It was like a tornado: all of a sudden, the wind picks up, people get up and leave, and it turns dark. We had sunshine, but then, all at once, it clouded over and turned misty,’ one woman told Franceinfo.
‘It was sublime, but very unsettling. We’re used to seeing the “enbata” (the local word for the galerne storm) on the beach, but the scale of this was unlike anything we’d ever seen,’ a man said.
