Eight die as fierce storm lashes northern Europe

Pilot boat Kapitaen Juers and other vessels are buffeted by powerful winds in fiercely choppy seas in the Elbe estuary close to the North Sea near Brunsbuettel, northern Germany.

AFP/Reuters/DPA/LondonAt least eight people died and more than 300,000 homes were left without power yesterday as a fierce storm swept across northern Europe.Four people were killed in Britain, two in Germany, one in the Netherlands and another in France as heavy rain and high winds battered the region overnight and into the morning.The rough conditions at sea also forced rescuers to abandon the search for a 14-year-old boy who disappeared while playing in the surf on a southern English beach on Sunday.British Prime Minister David Cameron described the loss of life as “hugely regrettable”.Winds reached 99mph (159kph) on the Isle of Wight off the southern English coast, according to Britain’s Met Office national weather centre.Heavy rain and winds of 80mph elsewhere brought down thousands of trees and caused the mass cancellation of train services across southern England and The Netherlands, as well as in parts of Germany.Fifty flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport were cancelled and Rotterdam Port, Europe’s busiest, said incoming and outgoing vessels were delayed.In Britain, a 17-year-old girl died after a tree fell onto the parked caravan where she was sleeping, while a man in his fifties died when a tree fell on his car, police said. The bodies of a man and a woman were later found in the rubble of three houses in London that collapsed in an explosion thought to have been caused after a gas pipe was ruptured in the storm.A woman in Amsterdam was killed by a falling tree as she walked along a canal, while a woman in her fifties was presumed dead after being swept away by waves in the western French region of Brittany, authorities in those countries said.And in western Germany, two people were killed when a tree fell on their car.Some 270,000 homes lost power across Britain, with a further 75,000 homes affected in northern France, according to industry organisations. Thousands were later re-connected.In France, helicopters and a sea-rescue team searched for a 47-year-old woman swept out to sea by a wave during a cliff sortie on Belle Ile, an island off Brittany where high winds generated waves of 5-6m, according to the coastguard in the region.The storm was named Christian in France and dubbed St Jude by the British media, after the patron saint of lost causes whose feast day was yesterday.It had been predicted to be the worst for a decade but the devastation was not as bad as many feared, and fell far short of that caused by the “Great Storm” of October 1987.During that storm, 22 people died in Britain and France and the damage was estimated at £1bn ($1.6bn or 1.2bn euros at current exchange rates).Northern Europe was preparing for the impact. The Swedish weather service SMHI issued its highest alert level in five counties in the southwest and forecast gale-force gusts.Power companies warned of blackouts and train services in the region were cancelled as of 4pm (1400 GMT). Ferry services, including those between the port of Ystad and the Danish Baltic Sea island of Bornholm were also cancelled.In Denmark, motorists were advised that the 18km-long Storebaelt Bridge over the Great Belt, a strait between the main islands of Zealand and Funen, would be closed for a few hours.