Paris, March 01: Hurricane-force winds, surging seas and driving rain lashed western Europe on Sunday, leaving at least 52 people dead and more than a million households without power.
Dubbed “Xynthia”, the Atlantic storm crashed against the western coasts of France and Spain overnight, bringing with it a band of foul weather stretching from Portugal to the Netherlands and inland as far as Germany.
Gusts of up to 150 kilometres per hour (93 mph) and eight metre (26 foot) waves battered the western coast of France, spreading flooding inland and sending residents scurrying onto rooftops.
“We were warned, but I didn’t think it could do this,” said 62-year-old retiree Jean-Francois Dikczyk, who saw the sea surge several hundred metres (yards) inland and smash though the windows of his house.
“My mother was nearly killed. She’s 83 and disabled. She was sleeping on the ground floor, and her mattress was floating. My son and I managed to get her upstairs, but it was really catastrophic,” he told AFP.
In all, 25 people were confirmed dead in France over the weekend, according to an AFP tally of official sources. Most of those lost were drowned in the flooded coastal towns of the Vendee and Charente-Maritime regions.
President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and praised the work of rescuers. His office said he would head for the worst affected areas early on Monday.
Some boat owners ignored warnings and stayed onboard overnight in west coast marinas. “The boat was rolling so much it was like being on the ocean,” said 60-year-old Robert Monne, who came ashore to find his car swept away.
Emergency services plucked families from rooftops with helicopters and rescue launches, and hundreds of refugees sought temporary accommodation.
Shortly after 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) state forecaster Meteo France said the storm had passed into Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, and there were reports of high winds in the Swiss Alps.
In Spain, regional authorities said Sunday that two men aged 51 and 41 died when their car was hit by a falling tree. An 82-year-old woman was killed Saturday when a wall collapsed in the Galicia region.
In Germany, a man was killed and his wife injured when a tree fell on their car in the Black Forest as the storm raged northeast across the continent.
Portugal said Saturday that a 10-year-old boy was killed by a falling branch and flood waters continued to rise on Sunday.
The northern cities of Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia issued flood warnings as the Douro river threatened to break its banks.
There were no immediate reports of deaths in Belgium, but there was heavy rain and in the Charleroi district south of Brussels, emergency services were called out repeatedly to deal with fallen trees and power lines.
In France, fallen power lines caused blackouts for around a million homes across a 500 kilometre (310 mile) swathe of the country from the Brittany peninsula to the highlands of the Massif Central.
Air France said 100 flights out of 700 were cancelled from its hub at Paris Charles de Gaulle, where an AFP reporter saw sections of one terminal roof starting to come loose.
Europe 1 radio reported wind speeds of 175 kilometres per hour at the tip of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but “Xynthia” fell short of the record 200-kph levels of a deadly 1999 storm system.
“Xynthia” developed in the Atlantic off the Portuguese island of Madeira, still reeling from the flash floods sparked by heavy rains that wrecked the centre of the capital Funchal and killed 42 people a week ago.
The storm swept northeast into northwestern Spain late on Saturday afternoon, where wind gusts reached 147 kph and some 100,000 households were without electricity, regional authorities said.
–Agencies