Xinhua News Agency
LONDON – Seen as one of the worst storms in three decades, Eunice has brought record high wind to Britain Friday, Feb. 18, killing three people while causing massive power cuts, flight cancellations, and school closures across the country.
A woman in her 30s in north London was killed when a tree fell onto her car, a man in his 20s died when his truck collided with a fallen tree in southern England, and a man in his 50s in northwestern England died due to flying debris, local media reported.
Some 200,000 homes have been left without power in Britain as wind speed reached nearly 200 km per hour on the Isle of Wight, provisionally the highest one-off wind gust recorded in England, according to the Met Office.
The Met Office had earlier issued a rare red weather warning for Eunice. An amber warning, meaning there is a potential danger to life, remains in place in parts of England and Wales after the top-level warning was lifted.
The British police and London Ambulance Service confirmed that several others had been taken to hospital after being hit by debris in separate incidents.
London’s O2 Arena, which hosts concerts and sporting events, was closed Friday after the storm ripped off sections of fabric from its roof. Around 1,000 people were evacuated and a concert scheduled for Friday night has been canceled.
Hundreds of schools were closed in much of Wales and storm-affected areas of England, including in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Dorset, and Bristol.
The storm has also brought widespread travel disruption. All train services in Wales have been suspended on Friday and more than 400 flights from or within Britain have been canceled.
The Met Office said significant impacts from Storm Eunice would still be felt for the weekend across southern and central areas of Britain as the low-pressure system moved eastwards.
The British government held an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss the response to the storm. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the army was “on standby” to support those affected.
Eunice is the second storm in a week to hit Britain after Storm Dudley battered parts of Scotland, northern England, and Northern Ireland, leaving thousands of homes without power. (Xinhua) – bny
