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‘Worst
in years’: St Jude storm wreaks havoc across N. Europe, at least 13
dead
At
least 13 have been killed as violent storms have battered the UK, the
Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and parts of northern France, cutting
off power and felling trees and scaffolding.
RT,
28
October, 2013
The
storm swept southern England, killing a 17-year-old girl when a tree
smashed through the trailer home she was staying in. A 50-year-old
was also killed in his car when it was crushed by a falling tree in
Watford, north of London, and in Amsterdam, a woman was killed when a
tree collapsed on top of her in the city.
Six
have been killed in Germany, the majority in separate incidents of
trees falling on vehicles. In Gelsenkirchen, northwest Germany, a
falling tree killed the driver of a car and a young passenger,
according to police reports cited by Zeit Online. Two other
children were injured in the process.
A sailor
and an angler were also killed in Germany on Sunday, according to a
policewoman who spoke to the paper. Hamburg declared a state of
emergency in the afternoon. In Denmark, a man was killed after being
hit by an airborne brick. Copenhagen saw record winds of 120 miles
per hour (194 kilometers/hour).
Monster
waves stirred up by the storm were also responsible for dragging two
people out to sea. One woman in her 50s was swept off France’s
northern coast after being carried away by a wave. Emergency services
are mounting a rescue operation.
A
teenage boy is also missing and believed dead after being swept out
to sea while playing in the surf in Newhaven on England’s south
coast Sunday. A search was initially begun for the 14-year-old, but
the rough sea conditions forced his potential rescuers to suspend
their mission. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the operation
had now become one of search and recovery.
Two
further people –a man and a woman – were found dead
in west London after a gas explosion, thought by police to have been
caused by a felled tree damaging a pipeline.
Emergency services work at the scene
of a fallen tree at Bath Road in Hounslow, west London October 28,
2013. (Reuters/Toby Melville)
The
port of Dover in southeast England was closed, two cross-channel
passenger ferry services suspended mid-crossing, and the Eurostar
high-speed rail service, which goes under the Channel, was out of
action until 7:00 am GMT Monday. Waves as high as 25 feet lashed
England’s southern coastline as the storm began.
Waves crash against a lighthouse
during a storm named Christian that battered France at Boulogne sur
Mer northern France October 28, 2013. (Reuters/Pascal Rossignol)
The possibility of further falling trees and debris has thrown public transportation into chaos with people fearing dangerous driving conditions. A double decker bus keeled over in Suffolk, on England’s east coast, a crane collapsed on the roof of Downing Street’s Cabinet Office and rail services faced delays and cancelations. Meteorologists described St. Jude as the worst storm to have struck the UK in years.
UK Meteorological Office spokesman Dan Williams told Reuters that the last storm on a similar scale, considering both time of year and regions struck, was in October 2002.
Workers clear a fallen tree from a
street in south London October 28, 2013. (Reuters/Andrew Winning)
“The thing that’s unusual about this one is that most of our storms develop out over the Atlantic, so that they’ve done all their strengthening and deepening by the time they reach us,” Helen Chivers, another spokesperson for the Met Office, told Reuters. “This one is developing as it crosses the UK, which is why it brings the potential for significant disruption ... and that doesn’t happen very often.”
The storm has also prompted the closure of two nuclear power reactors at Dungeness, on England’s southeast coast. Its operator, EDF Energy, stated that “the shutdown was weather-related. The plant reacted as it should and shut down safely.”
It added that unit availability was expected to stand at zero for the next seven days. The reactors were shut after power to the site was cut off.
In the Netherlands, a ‘red’ alert was announced by meteorologists for the regions of South Holland, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Flevoland, Friesland and Groningen, with wind speeds of 140 kilometers reported. The red alert only happened once last year, and not at all in 2011. All traffic to Amsterdam was shut down, and fifty flights to the city’s Schiphol airport were cancelled. Winds were expected to near the 130 kph mark in the afternoon.
The
Swedish Meteorological Institute has also been forced to warn that a
potential Class 3 storm could be a “great danger to the
public.” St Jude is expected to strike western and
southern Sweden in the evening.
“One should preferably stay indoors,” Lisa Frost, a meteorologist with Sweden's Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, told the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet.
“One should preferably stay indoors,” Lisa Frost, a meteorologist with Sweden's Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, told the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet.
A view of a tree which fell and
damaged a house during an overnight storm which passed over
northwestern France and Britain
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