Perilous Times and Climate Change
More than a million households without power, Death
toll mounts as severe storms lash Europe
AFP
Waves break along the shore of A Guarda, northwestern Spain.
Hurricane-force winds, surging seas and driving rain lashed western
Europe, leaving at least 13 people dead and more than a million
households without power.
PARIS (AFP) - – Hurricane-force winds, surging seas and driving rain
lashed western Europe on Sunday, leaving at least 13 people dead and
more than a million households without power.
Dubbed "Xynthia", the Atlantic storm crashed Saturday against the
western coasts of France and Spain, bringing with it a band of foul
weather stretching from Portugal to the Netherlands.
Britain, already suffering localised flooding from a previous weather
system, was braced was more weather misery.
Gusts of up to 150 kilometres per hour (93 mph) and eight metre (26
foot) waves battered the northern and western coasts of France,
flooding inland and sending residents scurrying onto rooftops.
"We have confirmed five deaths in the area of La-Faute-sue-Mer and
l'Aiguillon-sur-Mer," said Herve Rose, a government spokesman in the
low-lying Vendee region, where flood waters in some coastal towns
reached 1.5 metres.
Separately, an 88-year-old woman was found drowned in her home on the
island of Oleron in Charentes-Maritime further south, police said.
Two more bodies, that of a 10-year-old boy and of a pensioner, were
found in Charentes-Maritime, a regional official said. French
authorities had said Saturday that a man was killed by a falling tree
in the Pyrenees mountains.
In Spain, regional authorities said Sunday that two men aged 51 and 41
died when the car they were travelling in was hit by a falling tree. An
82-year-old woman was killed Saturday when a wall collapsed in the
Galicia region.
Portugal said Saturday that a 10-year-old boy was killed by a falling
branch in the northwest of the country.
In France, fallen powerlines caused blackouts for around a million
homes across a 500 kilometre (310 mile) swathe of the country from the
Brittany peninsula to the highlands of the Massif Central.
Air France announced that 70 flights out of 700 were cancelled from its
hub at Paris Charles de Gaulle, as chaos gripped transport networks
across western Europe at the end of French school's half-term break.
A major road crossing between France and Spain was closed to heavy
goods vehicles, causing a 1,200-vehicle tail back of seven-tonne trucks
on the French side of the Pyrenees.
According to a report on Europe 1 radio, wind speeds hit 175 kilometres
per hour at the tip of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but the storm fell
short of the record 200-kph levels of the deadly 1999 hurricane.
A hurricane is defined as a storm with winds consistently above 118
kph. The storm developed in the Atlantic off the Portuguese island of
Madeira, still reeling from the flash floods sparked by heavy rains
that wrecked the centre of the capital Funchal and killed 42 people a
week ago.
Powerful winds and heavy rain hit Spain's Canary Islands archipelago
late on Friday, with gusts of up to 128 kilometres per hour reported.
The storm swept northeast into northwestern Spain late on Saturday
afternoon, where wind gusts reached 147 kph and some 27,000 households
were without electricity, regional authorities said.
Rail services were cancelled in Galicia as well as in the northern
regions of Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country and parts of
Castilla y Leon, where the storm left some 63,000 households without
power.
In the Basque Country, where power was cut to some 30,000 homes, a
construction crane crashed onto a three-storey house Abaltzisketa,
causing major damage but no casualties.
"This is a very deep, very intense and very fast-moving storm," Spanish
Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said, warning people to avoid
using their cars and taking mountain or sea walks.