The death toll from hurricane-force Storm Xaver sweeping across northern Europe rose to six yesterday when high winds hurled a tree limb against a car, killing three people, local emergency services said.
Xaver blasted into northern Europe on Thursday after disrupting transport and power in northern Britain and flooding east coast areas in what meteorologists said could prove the worst storm to hit the continent in years.
Two people were killed in Britain as winds reached speeds of 225kph. A truck driver died when his vehicle overturned and a man was killed by a falling tree.
In western Denmark, a 72-year-old female passenger of a truck died when the vehicle overturned in howling winds.
In Poland, three people died and one was injured in the town of Poraj when a tree limb was blown onto their car,” Piotr Cholajda at the state firefighting headquarters said.
He said high winds had downed electricity lines, leaving more than 100,000 people around the country without power.
The Polish Institute of Meteorology and Water Management forecast wind gusts of up to 110kph inland and up to 135kph off Poland’s Baltic seacoast.
Poland’s flagship airline LOT canceled some domestic and European flights yesterday due to “unexpected weather changes in Europe.”
Thousands of Britons evacuated from their homes on low-lying east coast areas on Thursday were warned of further woes for yesterday in the form of “exceptionally high tides” — the most serious tidal surge for more than 60 years.
Sea levels are higher in some areas than during devastating floods of 1953 that killed hundreds along the North Sea coast.
Speaking after an emergency government meeting yesterday, British Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said flood defenses strengthened since 1953 had protected more than 800,000 homes.
Almost 8,000 people remained without power in Scotland where 80,000 people lost electricity on Thursday, according to energy company SSE.
In Germany, about 4,000 people in the northern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern had no power yesterday, schools were closed and about 70 flights at Hamburg airport were canceled.
Officials said floodwaters in the northern German port city of Hamburg rose to 6.09m above normal levels yesterday, the highest level in decades. All 38 flood-gates in Hamburg were closed earlier yesterday.
A high-speed rail line running 300km between Germany’s two largest cities Hamburg and Berlin was blocked yesterday by debris on the tracks. Stranded passengers were transferred to buses, according to Deutsche Bahn officials.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
RSS