A severe storm front battered the British Isles and Germany on Thursday, causing havoc with shipping and leaving one man dead in England, with forecasters predicting worse weather to come.
In the English Channel, French and British helicopters began winching to safety the 26 crew who abandoned a sinking cargo ship off the coast of Cornwall.
No details of the crew’s condition were immediately available but those who abandoned the London-registered ship were British, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Indian and Filipino, a British coastguard spokesperson said.
The storms also forced the suspension of cross-Channel ferry services between the English port of Dover and France and caused chaos to road and rail transport in England.
A 54-year-old man was killed when a branch, which had fallen from a tree, smashed into his car windscreen early in the morning in the western English town of Bridgnorth, Shropshire.
He was identified as Richard Heard, the managing director of Birmingham Airport in central England, who had been driving to work.
In Germany, winds of 120kph were ripping through western and central regions as the storm moved eastwards.
Meteorologists said the storm was shaping up to be the worst to hit Germany in four or five years and authorities warned people only to go outside in exceptional circumstances.
The storm was causing heavy rain throughout Germany and the combination of that and high winds led to flight cancellations at Frankfurt airport, Germany’s busiest, a spokesperson for its operators, Fraport, said.
At least 17 flights had been cancelled.
Authorities told Germans to stay indoors in the afternoon and not to park their cars under trees or near the sea because of the risk of severe flooding along the coast.
Winds could reach speeds of up to 150kph near the sea and in mountain regions, the national weather bureau in Offenbach said.
The head of the German rescue services, Albrecht Broemme, said tens of thousands of emergency workers were on standby.
”If this hits all of Germany, things could become pretty bad,” he said.
Northern France was also being lashed by rain and winds gusting up to 140kph, creating perilous conditions for motorists and pedestrians, the national weather service said.
Meteorologists said France would feel the brunt of the storms in the afternoon and late evening.
In Paris — where a man was killed last month when strong winds ripped a heavy billboard from a shop front — all parks, gardens and cemeteries were closed as a precaution until the end of the violent weather.
In Italy, meanwhile, 80 flights were cancelled early on Thursday at Rome’s main Fiumicino airport because of fog, the airport news agency Telenews reported.
Flights to or from Brussels, Casablanca, Paris, Nice, Munich, Florence, Venice and Amsterdam were among the 38 departing and 42 arriving flights cancelled, the report said. — AFP
