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Several injured as Storm Dennis rips through Germany

  • February 17, 2020

One week after Storm Sabine wreaked havoc in northern Germany, the offshoot Storm Dennis, named Victoria in Germany, swept across the country, causing accidents on Sunday and Monday.

Germany’s weather service (DWD) said the storm had wind speeds of up to 172 kilometers per hour (107 miles per hour). Several people were injured in storm-related incidents, often involving forms of transport and fallen trees, though no deaths thus far have been reported.

The most serious accident occurred in Trippstadt, a town along Germany’s border with France near Kaiserslautern. Seven men, aged 19 to 47, were injured after a man driving a vehicle crashed into a fallen tree shortly after 1:00 a.m. local time (midnight UTC), according to state police.

On Sunday morning, a 33-year-old woman was lightly injured after a gust of wind caused her to drive into a ditch in Schneverdingen, a town in Lower Saxony between Bremen and Hamburg. Later that evening, a 21-year-old female driver and a 20-year-old male passenger were injured when the woman crashed into a fallen tree in the Güstrow forest, near the northeastern city of Rostock.

Trapped on the train

Also on Sunday, a commuter train in Dortmund crashed into a fallen tree, trapping the 67 passengers on board until they were able to leave the train at 10:30 p.m. local time. None of the passengers, which included children and elderly people, were injured.

Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national railway service, closed several lines from Sunday evening to Monday morning so workers could clean up the storm damage.

In Hamburg, the St. Pauli fish market was flooded for the second time this month, with high tide measuring 4.15 meters (13.6 feet) above sea level — about two meters higher than the average high tide. Flooding also hit German’s northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein.

The DWD expects it to remain windy and stormy, especially in the north, before more calm weather rolls in in the coming days.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Storm chaos in southern Germany

    Authorities issued widespread weather warnings in the south German states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, which were expected to experience some of the worst of the bad weather. In Bavaria, around 60,000 homes were without electricity after the storm caused a power cut.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Storm disrupts Monday’s commute

    Long-distance and regional train services were suspended overnight across Germany, and commuters faced disruption as they tried to take trains to work on Monday morning with some services still canceled or delayed, with trains traveling at slower speeds due to high winds.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Meter-high spray in Schleswig-Holstein

    In Germany’s northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein there was meter-high spray from the North Sea at the ferry port of Dagebüll. In St. Peter-Ording, also on the North Sea coast, some parents took their children out to play in the wind, along with some brave kitesurfers.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Storm aids record-breaking flights

    Many flights were cancelled but the ferocious gusts also aided flights. Propelled by wind from the storm, a British Airways plane was thought to have made the fastest New York-to-London flight made by a conventional airliner, completing the 3,500 mile journey in just four hours and 56 minutes.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Injuries reported

    Winds have knocked over trees and other heavy objects, causing damage to vehicles and disrupting traffic. Several injuries were reported, including one woman in critical condition in Germany after a tree fell on her vehicle.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Battering winds

    Storm Sabine, or Ciara as it’s called outside of Germany, brought down trees and powerlines as it lashed parts of northern Europe. More than 30,000 homes in Britain, and some 10,000 in Ireland, were without electricity.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Flood warnings

    Heavy rain pounded much of the UK, prompting the Met Office to issue 190 emergency flood warnings. Waters rose rapidly in Mytholmroyd (pictured) in England’s north, after the River Calder burst its banks.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Massive gusts

    The howling winds also caused traffic chaos, with scores of flights and train services canceled across the continent. The UK Met Office said the highest wind speed recorded was 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour at the northern Welsh village of Aberdaron.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Sabine on mainland Europe

    The storm also battered the city of Wimeureux and other parts of northern France, where parks, cemeteries and outdoor markets were closed. The bad weather affected Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Germany, before moving east to Czechia.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Storm surge

    Sabine arrived on Germany’s northwest on Sunday morning, hitting the coastal towns of Emden and Kiel, and the North Sea island, Sylt. Ferry services in the region were canceled, while the ports of Dover in England and Calais in France were shut down completely because of the dangerous swell.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Passengers stranded

    Düsseldorf and Frankfurt airports in western Germany canceled scores of flights on Sunday as Sabine began moving south towards the state of Bavaria. Flights were also affected in the cities of Hamburg, Berlin, Hannover, Dortmund, Cologne and Stuttgart. Similar disruptions were reported at London’s Heathrow Airport, Brussels Airport and Amsterdam’s Schiphol.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Atop the Brocken

    Wind speeds on northern Germany’s highest peak, the Brocken, reached 156 km/h on Sunday evening, according to the German weather service. Forecasts warned there could be gusts as strong as 180 km/h there overnight.

  • Photos: Storm Sabine wreaks havoc across northern Europe

    Sports events, school canceled

    Authorities warned millions of people in the affected countries to stay indoors. Dozens of events were called off as a result of the weather, including the Premier League football match between Manchester City and West Ham, and a German soccer league game between Borussia Mönchengladbach and Cologne. All schools were closed on Monday in Luxembourg and the western German city of Cologne.


Further heavy rain expected in UK

In the United Kingdom, the Met Office,  the British weather service, warned of heavy rain in the wake of Storm Dennis, which raged across the British Isles over the weekend.

“Although the severe weather associated with Storm Dennis has passed, there is further wet and windy weather to come this week,” the Met Office said in a press release.

A record 594 flood warnings were raised across the country. Some residents in Wales were told to evacuate their homes within 48 hours. On Sunday, Britain deployed the army to help deal with high winds.

The Met Office said to expect “blustery showers” on Monday and Tuesday, with some snow forecast in areas of higher elevation. “Rain and increasingly strong winds” were also predicted for Wednesday.

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Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/several-injured-as-storm-dennis-rips-through-germany/a-52408037?maca=en-rss-en-ger-1023-xml-atom

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