Scotland storm leaves 50,000 without power

AFP/Glasgow

A photo background falls as a model poses during a windy day in central London. Parts of Scotland have been battered by stormy winds which have closed schools, disrupted transport and prompted warnings for drivers to stay off the roads. Winds of 70-85mph hit the central belt, leading police forces to tell motorists to stay at home

Engineers in Scotland battled yesterday to restore electricity to almost 50,000 homes left without power after a huge storm wreaked havoc and sparked travel chaos.Winds of up to 165mph (265kph) uprooted trees, flipped vehicles and caused a wind turbine to burst into flames during the first big storm of the British winter on Thursday.Flights were grounded, drivers were advised to avoid roads across large parts of central Scotland, train services were cut and thousands of schools were shut.More than 1,300 engineers, many drafted in from across Britain, were struggling to restore electricity to homes across Scotland, Scotland’s Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.A spokeswoman for supplier Scottish Hydro told AFP that 48,000 customers were still without power, down from 70,000 earlier in the day.First Minister Alex Salmond praised the response of emergency crews to the monster storm.“Scotland is a windy country but even for Scotland that was a once-in-a-generation experience,” he told AFP during a visit to Hong Kong.The strongest gales were recorded at the Cairngorms range in the Scottish Highlands, while the main cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh were hit by wind speeds of around 70mph (113kph).“I’ve been kept in touch ... and I’ve seen the extraordinary pictures of the exceptionally high winds,” the First Minister said.“There have been thankfully no fatalities reported and that is a tribute to the work that was done in advance,” Salmond said. “There are still about 50,000 people without power but there’s 15,000 people working on that.”“Scotland’s a very resilient country and we can take whatever Mother Nature throws at us,” Salmond said.