A method of decoding product codes is disclosed, in which the symbols of each codeword may be placed in a table comprising n.sub.2 rows and n.sub.1 columns, such that the symbols constituting each row form a permitted word of length n.sub.1 according to a first component code able to be decoded by means of an algorithm A.sub.1 for correction with erasures, and the symbols constituting each column form a permitted word of length n.sub.2 according to a second component code able to be decoded by means of an algorithm A.sub.2 for correction with erasures. According to the method, a correction of a row or column is only accepted when the result of the correction is deemed reliable, otherwise all the symbols of that row or column are erased. Devices and apparatus adapted to implement this method are also disclosed. The method is preferably applied to algebraic geometric codes.