Strong winds battered northern and central Europe on Sunday, killing at least seven people in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, with authorities watching for oil leaks from a huge freighter that ran aground in the North Sea, the Guardian reports.
Four victims in Poland and the Czech Republic were killed by falling trees. The storm also knocked out power to thousands of Czechs and Poles, and rail traffic in large parts of northern Germany remained suspended after heavy damage from fallen trees.
Winds reached more than 100km/h (60 miles per hour) in several parts of the Czech Republic and topped out at 180km/h on Snezka, at 1,602 metres, the country’s highest mountain, Czech Television reported.
The two victims in Germany included a 63-year-old German man who drowned at a campsite in Lower Saxony as a result of a storm surge, and a woman whose motorboat overturned in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, German media reported.