Storms bring chaos to Ireland, France, UK

Waves crash over Stonehaven harbour on the east coast of Scotland on October 19, 2023 as wind and rain from Storm Babet causes travel chaos. (Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP)

(AFP) - Ireland, Britain and France faced travel chaos on Saturday and one person died as a winter storm battered northwest Europe with strong winds, heavy rain, snow and ice.

Hampshire Police in southern England said a man died after a tree fell onto a car on a major road near Winchester early in the day.

Police in West Yorkshire said they were probing whether a second death from a traffic accident was linked to the storm. It is understood the road was not icy at the time of the incident.

Storm Bert left at least 60,000 properties in Ireland without power, and closed roads and some ferry and train routes on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Channel ports and airports in Britain were badly affected while in France, tens of thousands remained without power after Storm Caetano on Thursday. Hundreds of passengers were stranded when trains were halted by power cuts.

Media footage showed flooding in the west of Ireland, which also caused rail closures in Northern Ireland. Snow impacted travel across Britain.

The heaviest snow hit Scotland and parts of northern and central England, with dozens of flood alerts in place.

The UK Met Office issued snow and ice warnings for those regions, saying there was a "good chance some rural communities could be cut off".

Scottish hills could see up to 40 centimetres (16 inches) of snow, while winds approaching 113 kilometres (70 miles) per hour were recorded in Britain.

Ferry operator DFDS cancelled services on some routes until Monday, with sailings from Newhaven and Dover in southern England to Dieppe and Calais in France severely affected.

Flights were disrupted at Newcastle airport due to heavy snow, with some flights diverted to Belfast and Edinburgh.

- Blackouts -

Avanti West Coast, which runs rail services between England and Scotland, advised customers not to attempt travel beyond the northern English city of Preston, as it cancelled numerous trains.

National Highways also issued a "severe weather alert", warning of "blizzard conditions" affecting Yorkshire and northeast England, with a number of road closures announced.

Met Eireann, the Irish National Meteorological Service, also issued a  warning for "very strong winds and heavy rain".

The worst affected areas for power outages in Ireland were in western and northwestern counties, according to ESB Networks, which runs the country's electricity system.

"Crews and contractors are deployed and restoring power in impacted areas where it is safe to do so," it said.

In Britain, the National Grid operator said power had been restored to "many homes and businesses" but more than 4,000 properties across the country were still without electricity on Saturday -- the majority in southwest England.

Some 47,000 homes remained without power in northern France on Saturday, two days after the country was battered by Storm Caetano, power company Enedis said.

Up to 270,000 people had been cut off due to the storm but Enedis said it had 2,000 technicians working to reconnect electricity lines torn down by winds of up to 130kph.

Several hundred passengers were stranded on two trains in western France halted by power cuts.

Some 200 people on a train going from Hendaye to Bordeaux and 400 on high-speed TGV going from Hendaye to Paris spent up to nine hours in the carriages.

Junior transport minister Francois Dourovray told RTL radio that up to 1,000 passengers on different trains were affected by the power cut.

© Agence France-Presse