LONDON — The two great disasters that struck France in the closing days of the 20th Century have exacted a heavy price, and the death tolls keep growing.
On Wednesday, the tolls stood at 88 people, 100,000 birds and 300 million trees.
The disasters began with an oil spill off Brittany's Atlantic coast on Dec. 12. That was followed by a storm of historic destructiveness that swept across the entire, Texas-size country on Dec. 26 and 27.
The storm generated winds of more than 100 miles an hour. It was by far the greater tragedy, and it caused damage estimated at between $9.5 billion and $11 billion. That is about 3 percent of France's national budget.
Historic cathedrals, schools and houses were heavily damaged, telephone and electricity services were cut off over wide areas and trains were brought to a halt. Authorities are just beginning to reckon the full costs.
The losses in the private sector alone were estimated at $6.3 billion, of which about two-thirds was covered by insurance.
Historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie said the storms caused the worst damage to France since detailed records began about 1660.
The fate of the 88 people who died in the storm, many of them killed by trees falling on houses or cars, has almost been overshadowed by the spectacular damage to French forests and parks, estimated at more than $3 billion.
Trees on the Champs Elysees in Paris went down. In the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes, the two big forests that border Paris on the west and east, 140,000 were lost.
Ten thousand trees on the grounds of King Louis XIV's Versailles Palace were felled, and 17,500 in a park at St. Cloud, designed by the 17th Century landscaper Andre Le Notre. Parklands at Rambouillet and other historic chateaux also have been devastated.
In the park of Sceaux, just south of Paris, few of the 400 poplars that bordered a canal remain. In forests of the Limousin area of southwest France, up to 70 percent of trees were brought down or severely damaged.
The toll of 300 million trees nationwide is far greater than the 15 million destroyed by storms that hit Britain in October 1987 with hurricane force.
The French storms wiped out almost 3 percent of the country's 10 billion trees, many of them hundreds of years old. The worst damage by far was in the Lorraine, Marne and Champagne districts of eastern France, where up to 30 percent of trees in some forests were destroyed.
"In areas where all the trees have fallen, we will have to re-create the entire forest, which means that in certain cases it will take 100 to 200 years," said Jacques Descargues of the National Office of Forests.
France has the third-largest forest area in Europe, after Sweden and Finland. Its forests cover 35 million acres, or about 30 percent of national territory.
The $71 billion-a-year timber and paper industries employ 500,000 people. The storms brought down an estimated 3.5 billion cubic feet of timber, equivalent to three years of production. Experts said prices for wood are expected to tumble by about 10 percent as a result.
Some ecologists said the loss of trees has some benefit. It removed old timber and opened the way to planting of a greater variety of species, a priority of France's reforestation program.
However, they said the loss of habitat would lead to the death of many birds. Scientists estimate that 100,000 birds, 90 percent of them guillemots, already have been killed by oil spilled from the tanker Erika that broke up in heavy seas and went down off the Brittany coast.
But biologists said the food chain for fish was not badly affected.
The storms could even help reduce the death toll in French auto accidents. Many national highways have been lined by serried rows of trees, planted close to the road surface, and many people have been killed by going off the road and hitting them. Safety campaigners hope that roadside trees that came down won't be replaced.
One piece of good news is that vineyards across France came out of the storm with little damage. But in the Medoc area of southwest France, which produces some of the world's greatest wines, 250,000 acres of forest were nearly obliterated and an additional 100,000 acres were heavily damaged.
Jean-Louis Viaut, director of the Medoc Council of Wines, said the damage was an "ecological catastrophe."
The Champagne and Burgundy wine regions suffered only light damage.
Authorities estimate damage to historic monuments at $160 million. This includes $36 million at the chateau of Versailles and its park, $3.5 million to the Paris Cathedral of Notre Dame, $6.3 million each to the Parthenon in Paris and the Rouen Cathedral and $1.6 million to the chateau of Vincennes near Paris.
At the chateau of Vincennes, the Sainte Chapelle, a chapel started by King Charles V in the 14th Century and completed by Francois I in the 16th Century, five of the six great stained-glass windows in the nave that dated from the 19th Century were blown out. But a 16th Century window, depicting the Apocalypse, was saved.
Across France, many electricity pylons were down, and the monetary loss in this sector was estimated at $2.7 billion. About 3.4 million people were without electricity immediately after the storm, and some service still has not been restored.
Train were stopped by power failures and trees across rail lines. Damage to phone lines was put at $160 million.