Storm-battered northern Europe slowly gets back to normal

Berlin: Countries in northern Europe lashed by a storm that killed 16 people were on Tuesday still struggling with power outages and travel disruptions a day after the tempest.

After gusting winds and heavy rain, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and northern Germany began weighing up the damage left in the storm’s wake.

In Britain, where four people died, 61,000 households were still without electricity, albeit down from the 600,000 who were cut off at some point Monday, according to Energy Networks Association.

While some trains were delayed or cancelled, services were returning to schedule.

In Germany, where seven people died in the storms since Sunday, train operator Deutsche Bahn warned that lines in the north of the country could take time to resume normal services.

The storm wreaked damage on rail lines in the cities of Bremen and Hamburg as well as Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein states, the company said.

Several schools in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s northern most region between the North Sea and Baltic, were due to remain closed Tuesday, local DPA news agency reported.

Most train lines in southern Sweden were operating again but about 60,000 homes were still without electricity and some 35,000 phone customers are without landlines.

In some rural areas, it was expected to take several days before electricity was back on.

Two people died in Denmark, where national rail company DSB warned of delays throughout the day.

And in the Netherlands, where two people died, initial private sector damage was estimated at €95 million (Dh481 million), excluding public buildings and agriculture, the Insurers Association said.

The storm also claimed one life in France, where it has been named Christian, while British media dubbed it St Jude after the patron saint of lost causes whose feast day was Monday.

Insurers are still counting the cost of the storm, dubbed St Jude after the patron of lost causes on whose day it struck. They said it was too early to tell whether it would compare with the multibillion-pound cost of previous severe weather events.

Initial estimates of the level of financial damage wrought are not expected until later this week, the Association of British Insurers said.

Bethany Freeman, 17, died when she was crushed by a 30ft tree that fell on the caravans she and her family were living in while renovation work was taking place at their home at Edenbridge in Kent shortly after 7am.

Known as Gia, she was a “universally respected” sixth-form pupil at Tunbridge Wells grammar school who “had everything to look forward to”, the school’s website said.

Her driving instructor arrived at her home in Lydens Lane to pick her up without realising that she had been killed in the storm.

Father-of-three Donal Drohan, 51, died after his car was hit by a falling tree at the bridge over the River Colne in Watford.

Drohan, from Harrow, west London, was “in the wrong place at the wrong time” when his car was struck, police said.

An officer who attended the scene said that a millisecond’s difference would have meant “a different story”.

The Harrow council worker’s family said: “He was the best husband and father anyone could wish for. You couldn’t find anyone who had a bad word to say about him.”

In Hounslow, west London, three houses were destroyed and two damaged by an explosion, thought to have been caused by a ruptured gas main.

Officers were called to Bath Road at around 7.30am and at midday they found a man’s body at number 47.

An hour and a half later, a woman whom investigators were still trying to identify was found dead at the same property.

John Lee, a forecaster for the MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said it was the most powerful storm in years.

“There will no doubt be some disruption still following the damage caused by strong winds and heavy rain, but the weather will be quite different,” he said.

“It will be blustery with some showers, especially in the west, but a lot lighter.

“On Friday there is an indication that stormy weather could return, but it’s likely to bring heavy rain rather than strong winds.”