Fierce winds and heavy rains on Monday claimed at least six lives across northern Europe as Storm Ciara, or Sabine in Germany, disrupted travel, grounded hundreds of flights, flooded roads and left vast areas without power.
In one of the region’s most violent storms for years, one man died and another was reported missing in southern Sweden when their boat capsized.
In the Czech Republic, one man died when his vehicle went off the road trying to avoid a fallen tree. Several other people were also injured in the country as winds blew up to 180kph, leaving 100,000 people without power, even toppling a truck.
In Slovenia, a 52-year-old man on Monday died when a tree fell on his vehicle.
In southern Poland, a 40-year-old woman and her young daughter were killed by roofing torn away by the storm-force winds.
Police in London said that a man was killed in his car on Sunday when a tree fell on to a motorway southwest of the capital.
In the west of Germany, falling trees seriously injured three people: two women in Sarrebruck — one of whom was in a critical condition — and a 16-year-old boy in Paderborn.
The storm has swept across the region since the weekend.
It caused extensive flooding in England, cut power to 130,000 homes in northern France, and played havoc with air, rail and road travel in several countries.
The storm also cut power to 35,000 households in northern Austria on Monday.
It forced more than 700 flights in four German cities — Cologne, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich — to be canceled.
In the Netherlands, about 220 flights were canceled on Monday morning at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport — Europe’s third-busiest — most destined for other European cities.
In France on Monday, 90,000 homes of the 130,000 that suffered power outages a day earlier were still without power.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese