Northern Europe was hit by its third storm in five days, packing high winds and rain on Sunday and Monday that killed two people and prompted a series of flood warnings in a region barely recovering from the week’s gale-force winds. pass.
Storm Franklin moved in from the North Atlantic on Sunday afternoon as cleanup crews tried to clear roads and restore power after Dudley and Eunice struck last week.
Torrential rain and fierce winds buffeted Northern Ireland and northern England before veering towards France. England’s environmental agency has issued more than 300 flood warnings and rail networks have called on people to refrain from travelling.
In France, an elderly couple died Sunday when their car plunged into the English Channel near a Normandy village. The couple called for help, but rescuers did not arrive in time.
“The wind was so strong that it blew the car away,” Herve Bougon, mayor of Bricqueville-Sur-Mer, told the Ouest-France newspaper. “She knocked him over on his side and he sank into the water.”
At least 14 people have been killed by a series of storms in Europe that forecasters say is caused by an unusually strong current from the North Atlantic. The storms have left thousands of people without power, flooded towns, ripped off roofs and prompted authorities to evacuate people.
There were winds of up to 140 kph (87 mph) on the Isle of Wight on Sunday, after the British weather agency warned that Storm Franklin would bring winds of 96 to 112 kph (60 to 70 mph). .
Winds of 196 km/h (122 mph), the strongest on record in England, swept across the Isle of Wight on Friday as Storm Eunice arrived. Above 119 km/h (74 mph) a wind is considered to be hurricane level.
In Germany, the latest storm was less severe than its immediate predecessors, but still felled trees and ripped the roof off a house in Herdecke, near Dortmund. Two vehicles crashed into a fallen tree in Belm in the north of the country, and their drivers were taken to hospital.
Authorities have lifted severe weather warnings in Germany, where the storm is named after Antonia. Still, transportation delays persisted across much of the country.
Insurance company Aon estimated damage in Germany at 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion). In the Netherlands, the local association of insurance companies estimated that damages from the three storms amounted to at least 500 million ($567 million).
