German insurers yesterday estimated that ferocious gales that battered Germany caused 500 million euros (US$613.6 million) in damages, as the number of dead across the country rose to eight.
Trains on Germany’s intercity lines gradually resumed operation one day after they were suspended due to the hurricane-force winds that caused transport chaos across northern Europe.
Two more people were reported killed in the worst storm to strike Germany in a decade, adding to an earlier toll of six that included two firefighters responding to emergency calls.
Photo: AP
A 64-year-old man fell 8m while he was working to secure the roof of a house. He later died in hospital, Saxony-Anhalt state police said.
A 34-year-old also succumbed to his injuries after he was crushed by a falling tree, police said.
The huge storm caused another three deaths elsewhere in northern Europe and left air and rail traffic in chaos.
In southern Germany, high-speed Intercity-Express trains were running normally yesterday morning, although the service in the rest of the country remained subject to major disruptions, rail operator Deutsche Bahn said.
The company on Thursday suspended all high-speed services due to Storm Friederike — the first such stoppage since 2007, when major gales battered the country.
By the end of the morning, trains should be running to all the main cities, Deutsche Bahn said, with the service expected to be back to normal by the weekend.
Regional train services were also disrupted yesterday, particularly in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, the rail operator said.
Hundreds of rail staff worked through the night to clear the tracks of fallen branches and trees — many uprooted by the force of the storm, which had winds of up to 130kph — while others worked to repair damage to the lines, Deutsche Bahn said.
The German Insurance Association said that 500 million euros of damage was caused by the storm, although that figure was only one-quarter of the damage inflicted by another deadly tempest in 2007, which cost about 2 billion euros.
Separately, Dutch insurers reported 90 million euros in damages across the Netherlands, where train services were yesterday also slowly creaking back into gear.
“According to our first estimates, the damage to homes and cars is at least 90 million euros,” the Dutch Association of Insurers said.
However, it said it had yet to add in the cost to businesses, government buildings and the agricultural sector.
The Netherlands bore the initial brunt of Thursday’s severe storms, which approached with winds of up to 140kph off the North Sea before barreling across northern Europe.
On a lighter note, a boy was born in his parents’ car in the western German city of Cologne as they were caught up in the traffic chaos unleashed by storm, city authorities said.
The couple have named him Anton.
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