The Mallemort bridges are all that connect the two banks. The earlier bridge, the old suspension bridge, was built between 1844 and 1848 at the order of King Louis Philippe. It is the last remaining large bridge on the Durance River at 300 metres in length, with a wooden deck six metres wide. It was swept away the first time by a flood in 1872 and then in 1880, 1882 and 1886. It was practically destroyed by bombing in 1940.
The heart of the plain is the capriciously sweeping Durance River. Although its devastating floods ensured that it was regarded as one of the three scourges of Provence (the other two being the Mistral wind and the local parliament before the Revolution), the Durance also irrigates and replenishes the countryside. Only E.D.F. has managed to tame the river other than its centennial floods thanks to the canal de Basse Durance and above all the Serre-Ponçon dam.

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Recreated and uploaded December 30, 2021

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