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LONDON/BERLIN - Winds of up to 184 kph swept across northern Europe on Thursday, killing at least 21 people from Britain to the Czech Republic and causing travel havoc.
The German and Dutch railways were practically shut down, Frankfurt airport cancelled half its flights and helicopter rescuers winched 26 sailors to safety as their container ship began to sink in a stormy English Channel.
"Things have ground to a halt - this is unprecedented," said German rail boss Hartmut Mehdorn after hurricane-force winds lashed the network. Eurostar international trains between France, Britain and Belgium were also halted.
In Britain, where winds gusted up to 160 kph, five motorists died, two people were killed in Manchester and a boy died when a wall collapsed in London.
In Ireland, as in other countries, flights were cancelled or delayed. Most ferry sailings to Britain and France were called off.
Germans and Dutch where told to stay indoors and many schools closed early as the worst storm in years moved in.
Falling trees killed two people in a car as well as a motorcyclist in the Netherlands, local media said.
Strong winds damaged the arched roof of Amsterdam's Central Station, which was partly closed due to falling glass.
Shipping was disrupted at Rotterdam's port, Europe's busiest, where the storm caused an oil spill at a terminal when a drifting container ship bumped into an oil jetty.
After leaving a trail of damage in Britain and the Netherlands the storm hit Germany, uprooting trees, battering buildings and bringing flooding and major road and rail delays.
The death toll in Germany rose to seven late on Thursday when a fireman was killed by a falling tree in the northwest.
In the south, doors ripped from their hinges killed a 73-year-old man and an 18-month-old child.
Berlin's brand new central train station was evacuated after winds ripped a steel support weighing several tonnes from the facade and hurled it to the ground, the fire brigade said.
"What's unusual about this storm is that it will affect the whole country and not just certain areas," said Christoph Hartmann, a spokesman for Germany's DWD meteorological service.
After hitting the north and west of Germany the storm was sweeping east into Poland, the Czech Republic and northern Austria, DWD said.
Czech meteorologists reported gusts of wind reaching up to 184 kph. Uprooted trees killed three people in the country.
Around 20,000 households lost electricity as the storm ploughed into the Upper Austria region, in the north-centre of the Alpine republic, APA news agency said late on Thursday.
Fierce gusts tore away most of the roof of a high school in the town of Zwettl and the roofs of several homes in the area. Fallen trees were blocking a number of roads, APA said.
- REUTERS
