Violent gales battered northern Europe and beyond Thursday, snapping air and train links and leaving eight people - including two firefighters - dead. Germany halted all long-distance rail traffic for at least a day, while numerous domestic flights were scrapped as hurricane-force winds lashed the country.
The storm claimed five lives in Germany, including two firefighters deployed in emergency operations and two truck drivers as their vehicles were blown over by the gales. A 59-year-old camper was killed instantly when a tree fell on him in North Rhine-Westphalia state, German police said, as wind speeds attained a high of 203 kilometres an hour (126 mph) at the Brocken - the highest peak of northern Germany.
The storm named Friederike also ripped the roof off a school in the eastern state of Thueringia while children were still in the building. Authorities said no one was hurt. In the Bavarian alps, the strong gales forced the cancellation of a ski world championship qualifier at Oberstdorf.
It is the worst storm to strike Germany since 2007, according to the German weather service. In the Netherlands, which had borne the brunt of the severe winter storms earlier Thursday, two people were crushed by falling trees as bitter winds barrelled off the North Sea to hit the low-lying country with full force. As the national weather service raised its warning to the highest code red level, a 62-year-old man was killed in the central Dutch town of Olst by a falling branch when he got out of his truck to remove debris blocking the road.
A second Dutchman, also 62, was killed in eastern Enschede when a tree toppled onto his car, the Dutch news agency ANP said.
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