A powerful winter storm swept through northwestern Europe on Saturday, causing widespread travel chaos and leading to at least one death.
Hampshire Police in southern England said a man died after a tree fell on a car on a main road near Winchester, while authorities in West Yorkshire said they were investigating a possible link between a second death in a traffic accident and the storm.
However, the road in question was not icy at that time.
In Ireland, Storm Bert left more than 60,000 properties without power, and also disrupted ferry and train routes across the Irish Sea.
Britain’s major transport hubs have faced major delays, with airports and Channel ports severely affected.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands in France remained without power in the wake of Storm Cayetano earlier in the week, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded as train services were halted due to power outages.
Media footage showed floods in western Ireland, which also caused railway closures in Northern Ireland. Snow has affected travel across Britain.
Heavy snow hit Scotland and parts of northern and central England, with dozens of flood warnings issued.
The UK Met Office issued snow and ice warnings for those areas, saying there was a “good chance that some rural communities will be isolated”.
The Scottish hills could see up to 40 centimeters of snow, while wind speeds approaching 113 kilometers per hour were recorded in Britain.
Ferry operator DFDS has canceled 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, and some flights were diverted to Belfast and Edinburgh.
Power outages cover northwest Europe
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 remained without power on Saturday – most of them in southwest England.
About 47,000 homes remained without electricity in northern France on Saturday, two days after the country was hit by Storm Cayetano, Enedis Energy said.
Up to 270,000 people were without power due to the storm, but Enedis said it had 2,000 technicians working to reconnect power lines destroyed by winds reaching speeds of up to 130 kilometers per hour.
Several hundred passengers were stranded on two trains in western France that were halted due to a power outage.
About 200 people on a train from Hendaye to Bordeaux and 400 people on a high-speed train from Hendaye to Paris spent up to nine hours in the carriages.
Transport Minister François Duruvray told RTL radio that up to 1,000 passengers on different trains were affected by the power outage.