Gale-force winds and storms barrelled through northern Europe, claiming more lives, causing travel mayhem, shutting schools, and cutting power to hundreds of thousands in freezing temperatures.
Some 50 flights were cancelled at London’s Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers. Air travel was disrupted across Europe from the Czech Republic to Moscow, where over 300 flights were cancelled at four airports serving the Russian capital.
Forecasters from Britain to Germany urged people to stay indoors as they issued weather warnings, including the rare, highest-level red wind alert for the British Isles of Scilly and Cornwall in southwestern England.
In France, Goretti cut power to some 320,000 homes, most of them in the northern Normandy region, the Enedis power provider said. Nearly 100,000 homes were still without power on Saturday morning.
Overnight, gusts of up to 216 kilometres per hour (134 miles per hour) were registered in France’s northwestern Manche region, authorities said.
The winds felled trees, with at least one crashing on homes in France’s Seine-Maritime region, without injuries, authorities said.
‘Hurricane-force’ windsÂ
More than 13 people have died in weather-related accidents this week across Europe. The latest were in Bavaria, southern Germany, where a road accident linked to the storms killed two people Friday morning, said police.
Also in Bavaria, a 52-year-old man died Thursday after veering off the road and crashing into a tree while driving round a bend, local police said.
Schools remained shut in parts of northern France, where weather alerts have been issued in 30 other regions.
Giant waves crashed over harbour walls across France’s far northwest overnight and, as the storm moved east, it brought flooding and forced the closure of roads and ports, including Dieppe.
Northern Germany faced severe disruption from heavy snow and high winds brought by Storm Elli, with schools ordered closed in the cities of Hamburg and Bremen and long-distance rail services cancelled.
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long-distance rail traffic slowly resumed on Saturday in northern Germany, after being completely suspended on Friday due to another storm named Elli, rail opetaor Deutsche Bahn said.
In the far north of the country, the port city of Hamburg, heavily affected by a large amount of snow, remains particularly impacted by the disruptions, it added.
A number of rail services will still not be restored on Saturday, notably those linking Hamburg to Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Hanover.
Services from Hamburg to the western Ruhr region or to Berlin are expected to be restored over the course of Saturday, it said.
Flights were cancelled or postponed at Hamburg airport while several main roads were paralysed, including some hundreds of miles to the south in the Frankfurt region.
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The German weather service warned of “hurricane-force” winds in areas on the North Sea as well as in the southwest, and up to 15 centimetres of snow in parts of the country on Friday.
Two Bundesliga football matches between FC Saint Pauli and RB Leipzig and Werder Bremen and TSG Hoffenheim scheduled for Saturday have been cancelled due to the current weather conditions, the German Football League (DFL) announced.
Carmaker Volkswagen shut its factory at Emden in northeastern Germany, where about 8,000 people work. The country’s rail operator Deutsche Bahn said traffic would resume gradually through Saturday.
In the UK, the storm barrelled through southwestern Cornwall and parts of Wales overnight Thursday to Friday, with gusts of up to 160 kilometres per hour (100 miles per hour) downing trees and leaving tens of thousands of homes without power.
A man was found dead in the town of Helston in Cornwall on Friday after a tree fell onto a caravan, UK police said.
“Tragically, a man aged in his 50s was located deceased within the caravan,” Devon and Cornwall police said in a statement.
Most of the UK remains under a weather warning for snow and ice on Saturday, the Met Office national weather agency said, warning that black ice could cause “disruption” in Scotland and northern England.