| Saturday, January 20, 2007 |
| Heavy storm lashes Europe, throws life out of gear |
The death-roll in one of the most devastating storms that lashed northern Europe in many years has mounted to 27.
The storm also forced shutting down of airlines and other transport systems in many parts of the European continent. It uprooted ancient trees, with windspeeds hitting 118 miles an hour in Germany.
In a dramatic rescue operation, a pair of British Royal Navy helicopters winched 26 sailors to safety after they ditched the foundering MSC Napoli, a cargo ship, in the storm-stirred English Channel. The British Coast Guard had found the vessel staggering in 30-foot-high swells and drifting out of control, some 50 miles off Lizard Point at the extreme south-western point of Britain.
Environmental activists and European Union officials have been raising alarms that global warming patterns might cause freakish weather for decades and even centuries to come. British climatologists had predicted earlier this month that a combination of El Niño patterns, coupled with greenhouse gases building in the atmosphere, could make 2007 a year of ecological disasters.
The storm's death-roll is certain to rise as fishermen caught in the gale from Poland, Latvia, and Ireland have been reported missing and presumed dead.
Britain bore the brunt of deaths, with seven people killed, in gusts that reached 99 miles an hour.
In Berlin, Germany, lights flickered, cable television was knocked out, and large branches torn from trees smashed against apartment buildings, shattering windows and crushing parked cars. The city also shook to powerful blasts of thunder.
"It is most unusual because all Germany is affected, not just certain regions," Christoph Hartmann, spokesman for the German national weather service, DWD, said.
In Munich, an 18-month-old child died when a terrace-door was ripped from its framing and smashed into the house.
Ferry services were cancelled from Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and parts of Scandinavia and Finland. Hundreds of flights were grounded at various airports.
The Eurostar train service between Britain and continental Europe was suspended after an electrical cable line fell onto the tracks near the French city of Lille.
Rushing winds tore large panes from the roof of London Bridge's railway station, leaving shattered glass strewn deep across waiting platforms.
Dutch television showed footage of bicyclists being blown out of their seats or, in one instance, blown backward by the wind's force.
In Rotterdam harbor, Europe's busiest port, a container ship broke free of its moorings and crashed into an oil pipeline, causing 10,000 barrels of oil to spill into the water.
In the Netherlands, the eight-decades-old Wouda steam-powered pump, the world's largest of its kind, was pumping water back into the sea to protect the low-lying Friesland province.Labels: Society |
| posted by a correspondent @ 9:39 PM |
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