Seven deaths tied to European storm
Gale winds cause heavy damage, traffic chaos
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A powerful storm pummeled Europe with high winds and snow Thursday, killing at least seven people in three countries, grounding flights, halting trains, ripping roofs off buildings and flipping over trucks.
The Dutch national weather service recorded wind gusts of up to 87 mph in the southern port of Hook of Holland as the storm passed over.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol briefly halted flights for an hour in the morning, and airline KLM scrapped more than 200 flights even before the storm arrived. Trains were halted across the nation and in Germany.
Falling trees killed two 62-year-old men in the Netherlands, a woman south of the Belgian capital of Brussels, a 59-year-old man camping in the German town of Emmerich and a firefighter in the German town of Bad Salzungen.
In Lippstadt, in western Germany, a driver died when he lost control of his van in strong winds and drove into oncoming traffic.
In German’s eastern state of Brandenburg, police said a gust of wind flipped a truck over a highway, killing the driver.
Social media in the Netherlands was flooded with images of people being blown from their bicycles, cargo containers falling off a ship and damage to buildings.
In neighboring Belgium, the port of Ghent closed down because of the high winds and tram traffic was halted in parts of Brussels.
In Germany, police reported several injuries as well as the four deaths, and the national railway company suspended long-distance trains across the country as train tracks were littered with fallen trees.
In Britain, power was knocked out to thousands of homes. Gale-force winds damaged overhead power lines that supply trains and brought trees crashing onto the tracks, causing severe delays for thousands of commuters. Even Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle were delayed in their train trip to Cardiff in Wales.