Death toll hits 9 as icy storm blasts Europe
Print Edition
Icy winter storms with hurricane-force winds yesterday lashed northern Europe, where the death toll rose to nine while hundreds of thousands were left without power or stranded by transport chaos.
Emergency services across the region battled overnight to sandbag sodden dikes, evacuate flooded harbor areas and repair damage from toppled trees that crashed onto houses, roads, train tracks and power lines.
Atlantic storm Xaver, having barreled across Britain, where two people died on Thursday, packed winds of up to 158 kilometers per hour as it hit Germany, also battering the Netherlands, Poland and southern Scandinavia.
Blackouts hit 400,000 homes in Poland and affected 50,000 people in Sweden, while thousands of air passengers were stranded as flights were canceled in Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg, Gdansk and elsewhere.
The highest tidal surges in decades — due to the combined effect of strong winds and a large tidal surge — smashed into dikes in northern Germany and the Netherlands. No major breaches were reported.
The total death toll rose further, with one man killed by a falling tree in southern Sweden, and three died in Poland.
“A tree crashed down on a car on a local road” near the northern Polish town of Lembork, said firefighter spokesman Bogdan Madej, quoted by the television station Polsat News.
“Three people died on the spot, while another was taken to hospital.”
The previous day in Britain, a truck driver died when his vehicle toppled onto a number of cars in Scotland, while a man riding a scooter was struck and killed by a falling tree in Nottinghamshire, England.
Also Thursday, two Filipino sailors were swept overboard from a ship off the Swedish coast and remain missing, while a 72-year-old woman died in Denmark.
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