Strong winds cause damage, disruptions in western Europe – KIRO 7 News Seattle

PARIS – (AP) – A quarter of a million French households were without power on Thursday and trains from Normandy to the Paris region were halted after strong winds swept across northern France, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Local media reported that in the Dutch town of Barendrecht on the southern edge of Rotterdam, four people were injured when strong gusts tore tiles from roofs and uprooted trees in a residential area in the early hours of the morning.

The storm, which hit the Atlantic coast of Brittany on Wednesday afternoon, blew east through the night, falling trees and collapsing roofs in some areas, images published online show. France’s national weather service upheld storm warnings on Thursday in the country’s northeast corner, which borders Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg.

In the Norman town of Fecamp, wind speeds reached 175 kilometers per hour, according to the weather service.

Fallen trees toppled power lines, and utility Enedis said 250,000 households were without power Thursday morning.

According to the national railway authority SNCF, train traffic in Normandy and the Champagne-Ardennes region, as well as on some commuter routes in the Paris region, has been interrupted.

The Dutch rail network was also disrupted on Thursday morning by trees that had been blown onto train tracks.

The German railway company Deutsche Bahn has suspended all long-distance trains in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia – the most populous country in the country that borders the Netherlands and Belgium. The company announced that there were also cancellations and delays in other parts of Germany.

Firefighters in the Belgian city of Westerhoek near the Dutch border tweeted that they had been called a dozen times overnight to repair storm damage.

The German Weather Service warned on Thursday in the north and northeast of the country of gusts of up to 105 km / h (65 mph) and in mountain areas up to 120 km / h. However, there were no immediate reports of significant damage.

In Delmenhorst in northwest Germany, a man was hit by a falling branch on Wednesday evening, but was only slightly injured. During the night a freight train collided with a fallen branch in Bad Godesberg, a suburb of Bonn.

As a precautionary measure, the two Berlin zoos closed for the day due to the forecast of strong winds and the animals were brought to indoor enclosures.

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