Strong storms claim 2 lives in UK
Print Edition
Transport networks suffered major disruption and more than 140,000 homes were without power across storm-battered Britain yesterday after the country’s latest severe weather claimed two lives.
With southern England the worst affected by Britain’s wettest start to a year in two-and-a-half centuries, London’s Heathrow airport said some plane services had been canceled.
Train services were also stopped and roads gridlocked after the storms uprooted trees.
Work was being carried out to restore power to more than 140,000 properties, said the Energy Networks Association.
The association added electricity had been re-connected to 310,000 properties.
Police said a woman had died and a man was in hospital after part of a building collapsed onto their parked car close to London’s West End theater district late on Friday.
Out on the English Channel, high winds sent a “freak wave” smashing through a window of a cruise ship causing the death of an 85-year-old man, the ship’s operator said.
More than 30 people were rescued from a flooded seafront restaurant in Milford on Sea in southern England.
Parts of the swollen River Thames were expected to reach its highest level in 60 years over the weekend.
This forced UK Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday to reiterate his promise to do “whatever it takes” to help stricken communities following criticism of the government’s initial slow response to the flooding crisis.
More than 2,000 army, navy and air force personnel have now been deployed across Britain to help flood-hit communities.
Plus 70 percent of England’s fire and rescue services are working on the flood and storm effort.
Elsewhere, Bank of England governor Mark Carney has warned that Britain’s fragile recovery from recession would be affected as the bad weather hits farming and transport.
On the other side of the channel, some 70,000 French homes were without power.
Meteorologists in France registered winds of up to 150 kilometers per hour.
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