LONDON, United Kingdom / EuroWire.IO / – Two storms swept across northern Europe over the weekend, killing a man in Scotland and cutting power to more than 150,000 homes on Sunday. Storms Boelo and Austen passed through the region within 24 hours of each other, according to Agence France-Presse. They disrupted road, rail and air travel and knocked out phone networks. More than 82,000 homes lost power in Britain, nearly 60,000 in France and at least 10,000 in Germany.
A 60-year-old man died when a tree fell on him in southwestern Scotland on Sunday. Two women were injured by a falling tree in central Scotland. In northern France, a runner taking part in a marathon in Lille was lightly injured when strong winds brought down a tree during the race. Britain’s Energy Networks Association said more than 400,000 homes had lost power at some stage during the storms.
Winds of up to 135 kilometres an hour were recorded in Argyll and Bute in western Scotland. Fallen trees and power cables blocked roads and rail lines across Scotland and northern England. Authorities warned of a flood risk in parts of both regions. The Met Office said Storm Boelo posed a danger to life from flying debris and large waves. It urged people to stay indoors as much as possible.
France and Germany face widespread blackouts
In France, network operator Enedis said about 288,000 homes were without power at the peak of Storm Austen on Saturday. Some 59,000 homes were still cut off at midday on Sunday, mainly in Normandy and Brittany. The outages followed earlier disruption from Storm Goretti, which left hundreds of thousands of French homes without electricity in January. Austen had also blown away an unused pier in Brighton, on England’s south coast, on Friday.
In Germany, Storm Austen cut power to around 10,000 homes in and around Freiburg im Breisgau in the southwest on Sunday. The city’s main hospital limited its services to emergency cases because of the blackout. The outage also knocked out the local mobile phone network. On Saturday, two people were seriously injured in the town of Nastätten when scaffolding was blown away at a market.
Flights cancelled as storms reach Low Countries
The storms also hit the Netherlands and Belgium. Falling trees injured four people in Brussels on Saturday. Off the Dutch coast, three crew members on a freight ship north of the island of Schiermonnikoog were injured. Two of them were winched off and flown by helicopter to a hospital on the mainland. Hundreds of flights were cancelled or diverted across northern Europe because of the high winds.
AFP counted some 90 flights cancelled on the website of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. In Scotland, a Met Office yellow warning for strong winds remained in place for most of the country until 9pm on Tuesday. SP Energy Networks expected to restore power to all its customers by 2am on Tuesday. SSEN said some households in north-east Scotland could remain without power well into the week. Severe weather has caused significant economic losses across Europe.