Three people were killed in winter storms that caused disruptions across western Europe, BBC reported. Tens of thousands of people are without electricity, and air travel has come to a halt. Two people drowned off the Basque coast in northern Spain and a skier was killed by a falling tree in the French Alps.
Wind speed of more than 110 km per hour was recorded at Amsterdam airport, where hundreds of flights were cancelled, while four people were seriously injured as gusts of up to 147 km per hit France. In Paris, the Eiffel Tower was shut down for a few hours on Wednesday because of the strong winds and the city’s parks were closed because of concerns about falling branches, The New York Times reported.
The storm – named Burglind in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, and Eleanor elsewhere – arrived at a time a cold front set in, and hit Ireland before passing through United Kingdom and then went towards continental Europe.
In Ireland, 27,000 homes and offices remained without power, while the streets in city of Galway were flooded after tides overwhelmed the city’s sea defenses. London shut down the Thames Barrier to protect the city from rising water levels, Deutsche Welle reported. The Belgian government put the country on “orange” alert, the third highest warning level.
In Austria, about 20 skiers in the Alpine town of Kitzbühel were rescued after strong winds dislodged a cable car.
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