Three people have died in one of the worst storms to hit the UK in decades. An amber warning, meaning there is a potential danger to life, remains in place in parts of England and Wales after the top level warning was lifted, reports Asian Lite Newsdesk
Seen as one of the worst storms in three decades, Eunice has brought record high wind to the UK, killing three people while causing massive power cuts, flight cancellations and school closures across the country.
A woman in her 30s in north London was killed when a tree fell onto her car, a man in his 20s died when his truck collided with a fallen tree in southern England, and a man in his 50s in northwestern England died due to flying debris, Xinhua news agency reported.
The three deaths occurred on Friday.
Some 200,000 homes have been left without power in Britain as wind speed reached nearly 200 km per hour on the Isle of Wight, provisionally the highest one-off wind gust recorded in England, according to the Met Office.
The Met Office had earlier issued a rare red weather warning for Eunice.
An amber warning, meaning there is a potential danger to life, remains in place in parts of England and Wales after the top level warning was lifted.
The British police and London Ambulance Service confirmed that several others had been taken to hospital after being hit by debris in separate incidents.
London’s O2 Arena, which hosts concerts and sporting events, was closed on Friday after the storm ripped off sections of fabric from its roof.
Around 1,000 people were evacuated and a concert scheduled Friday night has been cancelled.
Hundreds of schools were closed in much of Wales and storm-affected areas of England, including in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Dorset and Bristol.
The storm has also brought widespread travel disruption. All train services in Wales have been suspended on Friday and more than 400 flights from or within Britain have been cancelled.
The Met Office said significant impacts from Storm Eunice would still be felt for the weekend across southern and central areas of Britain as the low-pressure system moved eastwards.
The British government held an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the response to the storm.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the army was “on standby” to support those affected.
Eunice is the second storm in a week to hit the UK after storm Dudley battered parts of Scotland, England and Northern Ireland, leaving thousands of homes without power.
Storm Eunice led to the deaths of three people in the Netherlands, all of whom were killed by falling trees in the Amsterdam region.
Three dead in Netherlands
Two people died in the city of Amsterdam, and one in the neighbouring town Diemen on Friday, reports Xinhua news agency.
Meanwhile, an elderly woman was also seriously injured by a falling tree in Boekel in the province of North Brabant. She was hospitalised with multiple fractures.
The weather institute KNMI had announced a code red in all coastal provinces, the warning for life-threatening weather.
Elsewhere, code orange applied, except in the southern province of Limburg where code yellow was in force.
Eunice swelled into a real storm of wind force 10 at around 3 p.m. on Friday, entering the country via the west coast.
By evening, the storm had passed its peak in the south, west and middle of the country, but in the north gusts of over 120 km per hour continued.
The storm caused many fallen trees and road traffic delays.
At the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, about 350 of 1,000 flights had to be cancelled on Friday.
The Dutch railway NS had already announced on Thursday that it would not operate after 2 p.m.
In the Hague, part of the roof of the stadium of soccer club ADO Den Haag was ruined by the storm.
In neighbouring Belgium, Eunice is described as the country’s worst tempest in 30 years, wreaking havoc and causing at least one death, local media reported.
Part of the roof of Zaventem Airport in Brussels was torn off by the violent gusts, disrupting air traffic.
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