Storm Eunice Sweeps Across Northern Europe killing At Least 14 Persons

Storm Eunice, which hit northwestern Europe has killed at least 14 people, caused extensive property damage and massive power cuts.

Formed in Ireland, the storm passed over part of the United Kingdom on Friday, then northern France, Benelux before continuing its route towards Denmark and Germany.

In Germany, more than 1,000 kilometres of railway tracks were damaged, according to a spokesman for the railway company Deutsche Bahn, mainly by falling trees, partly paralyzing traffic in the north of the country.
The peak of the storm has nevertheless passed and the alert (level three on a scale of four) from the German meteorological services has been lifted.

Hundreds of flights, trains and ferries were cancelled across northwestern Europe due to extreme winds from Eunice, which swept through less than 48 hours after Storm Dudley killed at least six in Poland and Germany.

At this stage, 14 deaths have been recorded because of Eunice: 2 in Poland and Germany, 4 in the Netherlands, 3 in England, 1 in Ireland and 2 also in Belgium. According to Ghent police, a 37-year-old man hit in the head on Friday by a solar panel that had flown away succumbed to his injuries on Saturday. Many of the deaths are due to trees falling on vehicles.

In the Netherlands, in the capital The Hague, dozens of houses were evacuated for fear of the collapse of the bell tower of a church. The Dutch rail network was disrupted and the Thalys Amsterdam-Brussels links interrupted, with no resumption expected on Saturday, according to a spokesperson.

In the United Kingdom, at least 226,000 homes remained without electricity on Saturday at midday in the country, where insurers assess the damage at more than 300 million pounds (nearly 520 million Canadian dollars).
They are a million in the same situation in Poland, according to local authorities, and several rail links are suspended.

In England, a gust of 196 km / h was recorded on the Isle of Wight, unheard of. Among the extensive damage caused by the storm, a 400-year-old tree fell on a house in Essex, west London. I heard a crack and then a huge noise, the whole house shook, explained to Sky News channel Sven Good, 23, who was in the house of his family. I felt the whole roof above me, it was absolutely terrifying.

The UK Met Service had issued a red alert level – the highest – for South Wales and southern England, including London. This is the first time that the British capital has reached this level of alert since the implementation of this system in 2011.

In the north of France, around thirty injuries were recorded, in road accidents linked to the wind or due to falling materials. Around 37,000 homes remained without power on Saturday morning and some regional rail links were disrupted.

Strong gusts coupled with high tides raise fears of flooding, especially as heavy rains were expected for Saturday.
Cross-Channel ferry traffic was halted, hundreds of flights were cancelled on Friday, road and rail transport was affected.

The entire Dutch rail network was affected and only Thalys Paris-Brussels trains were operating on Saturday morning, with a full recovery expected by the afternoon. In Belgium, according to Infrabel, after major nighttime repair work, most lines were in operation on Saturday.

In France, waves sometimes exceeding nine meters were recorded in Brittany (West) as well as winds locally reaching 176 km / h at Cape Gris-Nez (North).

While climate change generally reinforces and multiplies extreme events, the link is less clear for winds and storms (excluding cyclones), the number of which varies greatly from one year to another.