Massive storm kills 8 in northern Europe, causes power blackouts
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At least eight people died and more than 300,000 homes were left without power yesterday as a fierce storm swept across northern Europe.
Four people were killed in Britain, two in Germany, one in The Netherlands and another in France as heavy rain and high winds battered the region overnight and into the morning.
The rough conditions at sea also forced rescuers to abandon the search for a 14-year-old boy who disappeared while playing in the surf on a southern English beach on Sunday.
British Prime Minister David Cameron described the loss of life as “hugely regrettable.”
Winds reached 159 kilometers per hour on the Isle of Wight off the southern English coast, according to Britain’s Met Office national weather center.
Heavy rain and winds elsewhere brought down thousands of trees and caused the mass cancellation of train services across southern England and The Netherlands, as well as in parts of Germany.
In Britain, a 17-year-old girl died after a tree fell onto the parked caravan where she was sleeping, while a man in his fifties died when a tree fell on his car, police said.
The bodies of a man and a woman were later found in the rubble of three houses in London that collapsed in an explosion thought to have been caused after a gas pipe was ruptured in the storm.
A woman in Amsterdam was killed by a falling tree as she walked along a canal, while a woman in her fifties was presumed dead after being swept away by waves in the western French region of Brittany, authorities in those countries said.
And in western Germany, two people were killed when a tree fell on their car.
Some 270,000 homes lost power across Britain, with a further 75,000 homes affected in northern France, according to industry organizations. Thousands were later re-connected.
The electricity also went down at a nuclear power station in southeast England. Dungeness B station automatically closed down both its reactors, leaving its diesel generators to provide power for essential safety systems.
Even Buckingham Palace in London was affected, although Queen Elizabeth II was not there at the time.
A spokeswoman said several slates fell off the roof and two of the windows were cracked.
Train operators across southern England had on Sunday canceled services for the next morning in anticipation of bad weather, following warnings by forecasters and the media.
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