Storm Eunice cuts power and disrupts travel across Europe

Storm Eunice continued to wreak havoc across Europe on Saturday, with at least 12 people reported to have been killed, thousands of homes still without electricity and many ongoing disruptions to travel.

In northern France and Normandy, 37,000 properties remained without power at 11 a.m. local time on Saturday, according to grid manager Enedis, and about 1,000 technicians were working to fix the situation.

In the U.K., almost 150,000 people remained without electricity more than a day after the strongest storms in decades hit the country early Friday and train travel is still disrupted.

Eunice, as it’s called in the U.K., brought strong winds that felled trees and damaged buildings along a large swath of the country and also slammed continental Europe. A gust of 122 miles (196 kilometers) per hour over the Isle of Wight set a provisional record for the highest wind speed ever in England, the weather service said.

The storm ripped off part of the dome of London’s O2 Arena and thousands watched a live stream on Friday of planes struggling to land in high winds at the city’s Heathrow airport. Insurance costs from the storm could reach between 200 million and 350 million pounds (¥31.2 billion and ¥46.9 billion), Mohammad Khan, general insurance leader at PwC UK, told the BBC in an interview Saturday.

In Germany, where the storm is named Zeynep, the nation’s shipping agency issued a warning for the nation’s North Sea coast, predicting waves as high as 2 meters. A 270-year-old windmill in eastern Germany collapsed, according to a local media report.

Rail operator Deutsche Bahn AG said Saturday afternoon that “massive” disruption is ongoing in northern parts of the country. The state-owned firm said that more than 1,000 kilometers of the country’s rail network has been damaged and 2,000 people are working to help resume services. Still, disruptions will continue until Monday afternoon.

Train traffic is progressively getting back to normal Saturday afternoon in the north of France, after several train lines were damaged, according to SNCF. Meteo France is warning of strong coastal winds from the tip of Brittany.

Storm casualties

At least 12 people across the continent have been killed, many due to falling trees. Three people died in the U.K., all in vehicles that were hit by toppled trees or debris, while in Belgium a 79-year-old man drowned after falling from his pleasure boat in the port of Ypres, Le Soir reported.

In Germany, three people died, according to news agency DPA, including a 17-year-old who was in a storm-related car accident. A 68-year-old man on the North Sea coast fell through a damaged roof he was trying to repair, and a 56-year-old man drove into a fallen tree near the Dutch border. Winds in the country on Friday evening were measured at as high as 143 kilometers (89 miles) per hour.