Tornado-force winds of up to 120mph lashed western Europe over the weekend, killing up to 53 people, including two in a ski gondola brought down in the Swiss Alps.
The gales disrupted rail services, blocked roads, and closed both Paris airports for several hours yesterday. Euro Disney closed its Paris theme park because of fears about the safety of visitors.
Up to 28 deaths were reported in France, two of them when a roof collapsed on a family gathered for Christmas lunch. A woman was blown into Le Havre harbour and drowned. Others were crushed in their cars by falling trees. About 200 people were injured.
Gales gusted to 60 mph in low lying area of Switzerland, and up to 120 mph atop the Jungfrau peak.
In the ski resort of Crans Montana, a 13-year-old German boy and an 18-year-old Belgian girl were killed when a tree crashed into a cable and sent their ski gondola plunging to the ground.
Swiss media reported at least eight other weather-related deaths, including an elderly man blown to his death south of Zurich while trying to repair his roof.
In southwestern Germany at least 12 people died, many of them in road accidents caused by fallen trees, including three occupants of a car hit by a tree in a village near Ettlingen.
The weather delayed flights in Stuttgart and Munich, disrupted trains to and from Switzerland and brought down power lines. Officials estimated the damage at millions of marks.
Some 1.5 million French homes were without electricity. Six people were seriously injured in Paris by falling walls or collapsing roofs.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article