Agencies/London


People stand next to a truck blown over in high winds on the A720 city bypass in Edinburgh, Scotland yesterday
Fierce winter storms battered Britain yesterday, leaving one man dead and disrupting traffic at Scottish airports and the English Channel port of Dover.
A van driver in his 50s died after his stationary vehicle was crushed by a falling oak tree in Tunbridge Wells, a town southeast of London, police said. A male passenger escaped unharmed.
A bus driver in Surrey, southeast England, was seriously injured when a tree also fell onto his vehicle.
Flights from Scotland’s biggest airport, Glasgow, were heavily disrupted and train operators were forced to run a reduced service between London and Scottish cities as parts of Scotland were whipped by winds of more than 160 kilometres per hour.  Police in the Glasgow area warned drivers returning to work after the New Year break to avoid going out on the road after several trucks overturned.
The busy port of Dover meanwhile closed for several hours because high winds made it too dangerous for ferries to sail to Calais in northern France, port authorities said. The renowned Epsom racecourse, home of the English Derby, also in Surrey, was evacuated after part of the grandstand roof blew off, although there were no spectators there at the time.
A key road bridge between Essex and Kent in southern England was closed because of high winds and parts of Wales also saw gusts of more than 90mph in the early hours.  The Met Office said “wet and very windy weather” would affect Britain throughout the day as a spell of unseasonably mild weather over the Christmas period gave way to the far harsher winter conditions.
Meanwhile, more than 100,000 homes lost their electricity supply in Britain as storms of up to 90 miles-per-hour uprooted trees which knocked out transmission lines and flying debris damaged power infrastructure, electricity suppliers said.
SSE Power Distribution, which supplies electricity in Scotland and southern England, said 63,000 customers were disconnected from the power system yesterday, while 40,000 customers at Scottish Power Energy Networks in Scotland and north-west England were also without electricity.
“The biggest issue affecting the electricity network has been uprooted trees and other debris blown on to overhead power lines, which has caused damage and brought down the power lines in some areas,” a spokesman for Scottish Power said.
“The winds have also caused structural damage and closed many roads, making it hard for engineers to access faults.”
Other power network operators in England also said customers were cut off yesterday, but transmission was restored in the afternoon and the number of customers affected was smaller than in Scotland.
SSE and Scottish Power said they had mobilised around 1,000 engineers to tackle the supply cuts, but strong winds made it dangerous for workers to get to problem zones in certain areas.
“The company cancelled all non-essential maintenance work, and has drafted in extra engineers from England in order to help with the emergency response,” the Scottish Power spokesman said. Britain’s high-voltage power network operator National Grid also issued a warning yesterday about system disturbances between 0900-1800 GMT due to the storms.
“(There is a) high risk of circuit trippings and distruption to supplies in Scotland and North of England due to high winds,” the company said in a system warning.