The Seine river in Paris reached its peak on Monday, rising around four meters above its normal water level for this time of the year. Weeks of incessant rainfall led to the flooding in the French Capital.

The floodwaters rose to 5.84 meters on Monday and is not expected to start receding before Tuesday, according to the BBC. Around 1,500 people were evacuated from their houses near the Seine in Paris and around a thousand are without electricity. The homeless have been moved to gyms set up as temporary shelters.

Peniche houseboats moored in the Seine near the Eiffel Tower in Paris. (Credit: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)
A replica of the Statue of Liberty in the flooded banks of the Seine river in Paris. (Credit: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)
Flooded banks of the Seine after days of incessant rainfall in Paris. (Credit: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)

Paris uses the statue of a soldier from the Crimean War – known as The Zouave – on the Pont de l’Alma as a marker for water levels in the city. The water is still well below his waist – in the last floods in 2016, it was around his hips, while it had reached his neck in the worst floods in Paris in 1910 when the city was under water for two months.

The Zouave soldier statue is partially submerged under the Pont d'Alma bridge in the overflowing Seine river in Paris. (Credit: Pascal Rossignol/Reuters)
The Square du Vert-Galant in Paris flooded after the Seine burst its banks. (Credit: Alain Jocard/AFP)

Seven stations of a main railway network in Paris will be closed till February 5 as the floodwaters recede. Roads near the Seine are also out of service, as are the city’s Bateaux Mouches tourist boats.

Several neighbourhoods in the Parisian suburbs are also under water. Places downstream of the Seine are on high alert for flooding.

A local resident wades through floodwaters in waterproof pants in Parisian suburb Villennes-sur-Seine. (Credit: Stephane De Sakutin/AFP)
The Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral is surrounded by the floodwaters of the swollen Seine river in Paris. (Credit: Christophe Archambault/AFP)
Rescuers walk through a flooded street in Thomery near Fontainebleau, south of Paris. (Credit: Eric Feferberg/AFP)